[okfn-discuss] Problems of nomenclature

Sun Mar 4 11:24:04 UTC 2012

Hi Mike (and all),

Just to be clear: I did not intend to imply "open source" to mean
"mere source availability" - but that they share that characteristic
(among others).

The "libre" vs "open" debate is a matter of perspective: ethics vs
pragmatics. "Libre" is also distinct from "free" in the gratis sense.

Thanks all for this discussion (it matters)

Kim

PS In terms of striving for a free culture I believe the libre
perspective as portrayed in http://wikieducator.org/Say_Libre has an
important role. Like most people, I continually strive for freedom.
Overcoming the challenges and managing trade-offs is on-going.

--------------------------------

On 4 March 2012 04:11, Mike Linksvayer <ml at creativecommons.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 6:25 PM, Kim Tucker <kctucker at gmail.com> wrote:
>> PS Generic version of this response with slightly improved wording:
>> https://librelens.wordpress.com/
>
> Is it not a tiny bit ironic that you're using a not 100% libre
> platform* to publish this statement? AFAIK wordpress.com does not
> publish all of the software it uses, though of course the vast
> majority of it is stock wordpress.
>
> https://librelens.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/reminder-libre-means-free-as-in-freedom-and-is-clearly-defined/
> says
>
> "In the context of software, some people say “free/libre and open
> source” software (FLOSS) which covers both open source software and
> libre software – with the understanding that all libre software is
> open source (in the sense that the source code is available) but some
> (a very small sub-set of) open source software is non-libre (the
> source code is available but restricted in use and/or is dependent on
> some other non-libre software)."
>
> That's doubly wrong. Don't insist on people using "libre" in a
> particular way and then use "open source" to mean mere source
> availability, which is absolutely not what it means in these realms.
> Also, if you do take it to mean mere source availability, the sub-set
> of source available software that is not really FLOSS is large.
>
> Mike
>
> * ie OSSD or Franklin Street Statement compliant. Says me
> hypocritically, sending this email from Gmail. Perhaps I should think
> more about https://identi.ca/notice/90186361
>
> ps Thanks to Chris Sakkas for changing his proposed rename to "Public
> copyright licenses". I endorsed it, maybe others should too :)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_March_3#Category:Open_content_licenses
>
> _______________________________________________
> okfn-discuss mailing list
> okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss