I'm sure I'm going to miss things, because I'm writing this from memory. I'm sure that everything I say isn't quite correct either. The objective isn't to represent everyone's opinion but the collective opinions of most people, so if you're going to correct me, tell me what most people think, not what YOU think. Some evolution of this document could be posted somewhere.
-- Recent contact from the FSF has caused us to do some serious thinking about the ethical foundations of Free Software and the imact that that philosophy should have on our language and nomenclature. While few of us want to get caught up in finer details of the political debate, everyone agrees that Free Software is a GOOD THING and should be supported wholeheartedly. To that end, many of us have resolved to alter our language. When referring to so-called open source software, we will prefer to use the term "Free Software." And in general, because of the user-centric and ethically-oriented nature of the term "Free" we will prefer to favor it over "Open" in most contexts, along with other synonyms of "Free" like "Freedom," "Libre," "Liberty," etc. A running theme in the comments of many is that the terms "Open" and "Free" simply don't mean the same things with respect to hardware as they do with respect to software. For instance, the term "Free Hardware" is universally disliked as nonsense, with people preferring better qualified terms like "Free Hardware Design" (which we have adopted). Although we prefer Free Design Hardware, our primary focus is to promote any hardware that supports Free Software. Such hardware need not have a Free Design. To this kind of hardware, the term "Free" doesn't readily apply. The design is not Free, and the specifications are not necessarily Free either. The minimum qualification is that the vendor of the hardware has provided adequate documentation to write a fully-functional Free Software device driver. This kind of hardware is better described as "Revealed," and it most certainly isn't "Liberated." Therefore, we prefer to use the term "Open" to describe this kind of hardware. There is no direct link between "Open" in "Open Source Software" and "Open" in "Open Hardware." They mean different things. Moreover, there is no conflict between "Free Software" and "Open Hardware." We believe that Free Software will be more successful with a world full of "Open Hardware" than having a handful of "Free Hardware Designs". The term "Open Standard" has been corrupted by people offering so-called "RAND" licensing. Despite that, most don't feel that its misuse by others should excessively impact our use of the term. On the other hand, most really like the term "Free Standard" and will prefer that term. One place where we feel "Open" seems highly appropriate is in "Open Architecture." In general, we believe that the term "Open" in reference to hardware does not carry the same amoral connotation that it does when referring to "Open Source Software." "Open Hardware" describes a minimum reasonable level of hardware freedom or revelation but a total commitment to Free Software. As such, we do not feel that it is inappropriate to retain the word "Open" in either "Open Graphics Project" or "Open Hardware Foundation." That being said, there is room for creative improvements in our names that could further improve our reference to our support for Free Software. This is an open issue and will be discussed further. -- Timothy Miller http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
