Re: [fsf-community-team] What's in a name............

[Simon Bridge]

On Sun, 2009-12-13 at 09:37 +1100, Charlie wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
> 
> The explanation of Free Software has always been a bit difficult to
> explain, being that people think immediately of free as in beer, as it
> not needing to be paid for and therefore inferior. After all, most
> people think that if something can be given away it has no value, not
> realising the person who buys or is given the thing puts the value upon
> it, won't pay more than it's worth to them, and values highly what
> serves them best even if donated.

We've all been there.

In fact the name confusion is useful for discussions - the need to
explain also generates the opportunity to explain - nobody likes being
preached at.

If you say you have some free software to sell, and people ask if that
is not a contradiction in terms, then they have just asked for the
sermon and cannot complain ;)

I do this with the LUG I founded - called HBCLUG but always written in
long form as "Hibiscus Coast GNU/Liux Users Group". People stop me to
correct the acronym and ask what the "gunnoo, gernuh, thingy" is ... so
I get ot tell them. Interestingly, the people who asked are
self-selecting as people worth telling so I save a lot of time.

Recently another LUG has members calling themselves "Liberated Users of
GNU" get it? This approach turns out to be intrinsically interesting and
has attracted members. The names stucture also invites explanation -
thus more sermons :)

The name is the least of our problems and not as big-a problem as it
first seems.