Re: [libreplanet-discuss] ethical edtech edit-a-thon

[Dmitry Alexandrov]

Aaron Wolf <wolftune@riseup.net> wrote:
> There's a bunch of confusion going on here. <…>
>
> As far as trying to talk about these topics in general, I suggest the use of 
> FLO (Free/Libre/Open), as discussed at 
> https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/about/free-libre-open

Argh!  That’s a perfect idea to get some more bunches of confusion, if you ask 
me.

When Raymond & Co. decided to coin a new word to hijack the essence of free 
software to promote their own idea, they cared and succeed not to repeat Dr. 
Stallman’s mistake of using an ambiguous word, so they didn’t not call it 
‘open’, which would be even more overloaded than ‘free’ is¹, but ‘open 
_source_’.

Another reason, more apparent then than today, was in the fact, that ‘open 
software’ have been already _taken_ to mean something entirely different: 
(mostly nonfree) software based on open standards (keywords: SUS, CDE, Motif).

_
¹ Well, I by no means an expert in English, but any dictionary in my possession 
says so.  Moreover, after verbatim translation to another language ‘free 
software’ tends to rid itself from ambiguity, while ‘open’ does not — at best.  
At worst, it acquires further meanings, like that of ‘opened programs’ (= 
‘running programs’), for instance.

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