[Sussex] A Brief Guide to Open-Source

[Geoffrey Teale]

On Wednesday 21 December 2005 00:01, Mark Harrison (Groups) wrote:
> And that one sentence pretty much epitomises a key difference between
> Geoff and I.
>
> Both of us agree that the term "Open Source" was developed as a
> marketing tool.
>
> However, Geoff considers this "unfortunate". I consider this
> "excellent".

Not quite.  I consider the assumption that the people who are being marketed 
to are stupid to be unfortunate.  I understand the desire to make the 
software more marketable and support that.  Indeed RMS himself has said as 
much many a time.  The greater adoption of free software is a good thing, we 
just want to make sure the message about why this stuff is good get's carried 
along with the product.  

A lot of time and energy gets spent on this kind of discussion, the fact is 
we're all broadly heading in the same direction.  I just feel duty bound to 
bang on about freedom so that it doesn't get forgotten.  It's the freedom 
that delivers the benefit whether you call it "open", "libre" or plain ol' 
"free".  Watch out for "shared" though - that one's got a bitter after 
taste.  :-)

> I've found the term "Open Source" has a better hit rate for me at
> getting customers to buy than "Free".
>
> I suspect, however, that the term "Free" has a far better hit rate at
> getting developers to "buy into" the concept, and contribute.

Actually I've no idea.  If the develop buys into the concept they'll probably 
be aware of  both terms.  The terms matter less than the meaning when we both 
know what we're talking about.  Ironically it's mostly people like us, who 
are fully aware of what the terms mean, that argue about this stuff.

> As for the rest of Geoff's post - I agree with 90% of what he says.

I won't tempt fate by asking about the other 10%. :-)

-- 
Geoff Teale
tealeg at member.fsf.org