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   Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Saturday, 10-Jun-2023 11:44:12 JST Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

   In another thread on Mastodon, someone has pointed out that "Free and Open Source Software" is almost always misunderstood by non-practitioners as meaning "free of cost software, i.e. freeware, & open source software", where the latter (aka #OSS) has in recent years been undermined in the mainstream by Github, Microsoft, the Linux Foundation, & other corporate interests to mean 'weak' open source licenses like MIT, Apache, & BSD, which do far less to protect the 4 Freedoms, *not* Copyleft. 1/3

   • Embed this notice
     MattZ (colinsmatt11@gleasonator.com)'s status on Saturday, 10-Jun-2023 11:44:08 JST MattZ

     in reply to

     • Simon Phipps
     • Abandoned
     @doctormo @lightweight @webmink I say Libre Software when I notice people are getting confused.
     翠星石 likes this.
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     Abandoned (doctormo@fosstodon.org)'s status on Saturday, 10-Jun-2023 11:44:09 JST Abandoned

     in reply to

     • Simon Phipps

     @lightweight @webmink

     A lot of groups moved to saying "Software Freedom" although that gets a bit clunky too.

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     Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Saturday, 10-Jun-2023 11:44:11 JST Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

     in reply to

     • Simon Phipps

     @webmink rightly notes in https://the.webm.ink/the-return-of-freeware the term 'free' is deeply fraught in English due to it's dual meaning: primarily 'zero cost' and only secondarily 'preserving freedom'. So the question is "How could we refer to both succinctly & unambiguously?" ... Perhaps we're not taking enough advantage of the term #Copyleft... which is quite unique to this context and signifies Free Software license with inherited properties (banned for use within many corporations, notably GOOG) 2/3

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     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Saturday, 10-Jun-2023 12:02:43 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • MattZ
     @colinsmatt11 "freedom software" has been somewhat often used by proprietary software companies that do the classic bait and switch where they promise freedom with their proprietary software, but then proceed to do the exact opposite, so I don't use that term.
     
     For people to understand free software, you have to drive the point home hard that free means freedom from [x] and has absolutely nothing to do with price, although marketing often adopts a ploy where they promise freedom by claiming that something's free of charge, when most of the time, the thing offered isn't even gratis and doesn't give freedom either.
     
     But good luck getting a someone that's a slave to (not actual) convenience to understand or remember that.
     
     
     I've taken to writing and saying free software with fellow freedom enjoys and also in contexts where lots of freedom and GNU can be seen and libre software in other contexts.
     
     Libre is derived from liberty, so some variant of: "It's libre software, thus software that respects your liberty and freedom, also known as free software." should succulently describe it in only one sentence.
     
     @lightweight >if you have to explain a marketing phrase, it's already failed.
     "open source" if anything is utterly terrible as a marketing phrase, as it takes many sentences to explain that it refers to 10 requirements for the licenses of software.
     
     Although you can market "open source" quite easily, every single person marketed to assumes that it means that the source code is publicly available and it's incredibly difficult to get the misinformed to understand otherwise.
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     MattZ (colinsmatt11@gleasonator.com)'s status on Saturday, 10-Jun-2023 12:02:44 JST MattZ

     in reply to

     • Simon Phipps
     • Abandoned
     @lightweight @doctormo @webmink You gotta start somewhere, freedom software is never going to roll off the tongue of many people so it won't be good for marketing.
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     MattZ (colinsmatt11@gleasonator.com)'s status on Saturday, 10-Jun-2023 12:02:46 JST MattZ

     in reply to

     • Simon Phipps
     • Abandoned
     @lightweight @doctormo @webmink My usual sentence is "it's libre software, and libre roughly means freedom". They seem to understand it.
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     Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Saturday, 10-Jun-2023 12:02:46 JST Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

     in reply to

     • MattZ
     • Simon Phipps
     • Abandoned

     @colinsmatt11 problem is, if you have to explain a marketing phrase, it's already failed. :( @doctormo @webmink

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     Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Saturday, 10-Jun-2023 12:02:48 JST Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿

     in reply to

     • MattZ
     • Simon Phipps
     • Abandoned

     @colinsmatt11 Yes, I sometimes prefer that, too... sadly, it seems that some people won't get that because it's not a familiar English word, although I agree it makes sense to normalise the borrowed word. @doctormo @webmink