On Thursday 11 January 2007 16:11, Timothy Miller wrote: > 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.
Right. > 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. I'm not sure there's complete consensus about this, but I haven't heard any big complaints either. > 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). Right. > 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. I don't recall anyone proposing "Open Hardware" recently. I've seen Open Standards-compliant, Free-Standard Hardware, Documented Hardware and Freely-Usable hardware though. > 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". Right, that's obvious. > 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." I don't recall. > 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." Again, I'm not sure that there is an exact consensus on this. > 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. Right. Lourens
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