My primarly fear with people calling for rexamination of the values of the Free Software movement is that it will be gutted. It's a truly frightening prospect. The thing that makes Free Software different from "open source" is that it *is* radical, and there is no pretending that Free Software is not a political issue to a certain extend. "Open Source" folks seem to sacrifice a lot for the sake of getting along with evil companies, and I really don't want that to infect libre software.
@polarisfm good thing you can ignore them
@polarisfm I fear that for the average user, the difference between the two is negligible at best, especially because the two definitions on the surface seem to overlap. Not my personal viewpoint as I agree with you, just an observation.
@Moostafa332 That's a huge problem with the Free Software movement in general. People don't understand the difference, espeically when people use terms like FOSS, which while a nice blanket term, does equate the two when they're rather different ideologically. I really feel like rebranding is in order for the Free Software movement. Software Freedom movement, maybe?
@polarisfm That name would help somewhat, though without emphasis or context, I think we'd end up in the same point. A greater push needs to made in my opinion, that drives home the separation between the two.
@polarisfm On a side note, what are your thoughts now that Stallman has resigned? Do you feel that what he started is robust enough to survive without him at the helm?
@polarisfm
Of course. There is NO need to change the values of free software. Free Software needs strong proponents, just as it is. Free Software also only concerns software, not any social interactions. It does not say anything about inclusion or exclusion of people. That's not what it is concerned with. It is a separate issue.
So hands off free software please.
Reexamime culture in programing, go ahead, very good thing. But keep the word free software out of it, less you destroy more than fix
@polarisfm
Is what I think should, very agressively, be told the people who want to reform here, because the danger that water-downers hide among them, is high.
@xro
Some of the most talented programmers and dedicated libre software folks I know belong to marginalized groups. The idea that exclusion of minority groups would save the "purity" of libre software is frankly absurd.
@polarisfm Open Source is a development methodology, Free Software is a philosophy. This has always been so and will remain so.
@jeremiah I understand what you're saying but I'm not sure I agree. While Open Source software and Free Software usually overlap in terms of the actual software, I feel that people who promote Open Source instead of Free Software have a very different ideology. Open Source is often promoted by companies like Google, Microsoft, etc. Even though most OSS is Free, companies who promoted Open Source often erase the ethical issues surrounding software.
@polarisfm Yes, you're right. That is why open source is limited to software development - people use it to throw code over the wall. Free Software has a set of ethical components, as well as moral components because it is a philosophy.
Free Software is seperate from the open source movement because it has principals. Open source folks argue that it "makes the software better," where Free Software recognizes the importance of giving control the user(s) of software. If that goes away, then what is the point?