[okfn-discuss] Free Software tools for OKFN -- please contribute

Sat Nov 30 00:18:26 UTC 2013

Folks will want stuff that is easy to access and is "free", that is, most people won't want to pay for stuff. The open part won't be very important to the average user.  

The FSF definition is okay
"Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software."
http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page

As long as the software is "free", which to most folks means don't have to pay, then some folks will try it or use it.

So I guess the question is: what is your goal? If you want lots of people to use the software, make it easy to find and get (and of course easy to use), and don't add a lot of technical stuff about what "free" or "open" means. It won't matter to most. Most will just want stuff they don't have to pay for.

If you want to educate the public, maybe have a link on the side saying "if you want to learn more about what 'free' means, click here." There you can add technical stuff.

Then the next question is, why do you need the average user to learn what "free" or "open" means? What is the end game? Do you want people to vote differently on something? To contribute money to okfn or fsf? To not use MS Office?

Gene 

________________________________
 From: Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org>
To: okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org 
Sent: Friday, November 29, 2013 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: [okfn-discuss] Free Software tools for OKFN -- please contribute

On 29/11/13 09:56 PM, Gene Shackman wrote:
> 
> If you want to sell this to the public, you need a better term than
"free" (and not "libre"). Because people will think free means free to
use. "Free and open" might do it. Most people probably have some vague
idea what open means. Or "free and open source".

People will misunderstand Free precisely once. It's easy to explain.

"Open" is also potentially ambiguous, that's why there's the Open
Definition.

- Rob.
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