Re: [Fwd: [Fsfe-uk] Hello]

[Alex Hudson]

On Wed, Apr 24, 2002 at 11:09:36AM +0100, Chris Puttick wrote:
> The reason why you should avoid the free word is the misunderstanding it
> generates. No software is free. GNU/Emacs was not free; a number of highly
> skilled, valuable individuals contributed their time to make it work. It is
> only free to use. Cost effective is much more persuasive. 

We prefer to think of 'free' was referring to what you can do with the
software, not how much it costs in various measurements. Free as in speech.
Using cost based arguments confuses people; there is expensive Free software
(RedHat Enterprise support?), there is cheap non-Free "open source" software
(SuSE Linux). 

> StarOffice is useful because of (a) branding, (b) support and (c)
> redistribution agreements. 

Unfortunately, again, there's a Free Software / Open Source / cheapware
confusion here. You can't (or won't be able to, as of StarOffice 6) 
redistribute it - it's going to be payware, at about 100UKP a time IIRC. 

OpenOffice.org (to give it it's correct name now; I'm trying very hard to
use it ;) is essentially the same product as StarOffice, but is Free
Software, not proprietary (or, with proprietary components). It's also in a
very useful state.

Cheers,

Alex.