[CrackMonkey] The right to bare legs

[Rick Moen]

begin  Paul J Collins quotation:

> I'm not a zealot.  I am someone who realises that "open source" is a
> distraction....

Oh, come now.  Even Stallman sees the logic of using that term as a
marketing term to appeal to business.  (He just wants hackers to be
willing to recognise the importance of freedom when speaking among
themselves.)

> and a term that is more open to misinterpretation that the supposedly
> confusing term "free software".

Only if people cease referring the confused to
http://www.opensource.org/osd.html .  So, Don't Do That, Then.

Likewise, I refer people to
http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines if they're unclear on
the meaning of "free software".  The fact that the two documents'
substantive content is basically the same is a nice fringe-benefit,
but the _point_ is that both are clear and as precise as can be
reasonably achieved, and render both terms meaningful enough for 
genuine discussion.

> That's why "open source" is so insidious.  It is easy to write a
> definition that encompasses anything you like.

Which is why it's important to insist on the OSD as the canonical
definition.
 
> I'm not confused.  "Open source" is a business model with a vague
> idelogical underpinning based on apocryphal evidence.  Free software
> is a philosophy whose application has yielded a large body of useful
> software and the opportunity to be free of petty proprietary concerns.

The licence criteria are identical.  The marketing differs.

-- 
Cheers,                              "Open your present...."
Rick Moen                            "No, you open your present...."
rick (at) linuxmafia.com             Kaczinski Christmas.
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