Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Wikipedia day at Madlab

[Michael Dorrington]

MJ Ray wrote:
> Simon Ward wrote:
>> Speaking of unfortunate banners, does anyone else think the fundraising
>> banners on gnu.org sites are offensive to the eyes?
> 
> Yes and it seems a very poor shop that the besieged souls who donate
> their time to moderate GNU's mailing lists get the ugly banners on the
> list moderation queue pages.  It's reduced how often I mod my queue.
> (Would a developer-democracy-run FSF make this mistake?)

The banners are gone now. Happy? :)
I am truly thankful that you battle through such adversities as having
an ugly banner at the top of list moderation queue pages.

>> I can try to summarise open source as lacking the values of free
>> software, or a marketing term to try and make free software acceptable
>> to those who care less about its values, and in doing so dilutes the
>> meaning, but I don’t think it conveys the whole story as well as the
>> article “Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software”[1].
>>
>> [1]: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
> 
> I've never found that particularly useful.  It's a bit long and
> academicish, digresses early on and tells open source supporters what
> they think (which will annoy many). It doesn't mention what I feel are
> the worst problems: the phrase "Open Source" is more ambiguous and
> OSI's definition is too long for most people to remember.

It "digresses early on"? It what way?
It does say that Open Source supporters miss the point of free software,
which they do. This might annoy them but so be it.
And the article gives good coverage of the issues involved and does talk
about the term Open Source being ambiguous, a charge often leveled at
the term Free Software and a reason to use the term Open Source, (and
the article says the OSI definition "is too long to include here" :).

> I feel the "We speak about Free Software" document is shorter and
> punchier.  Read it at http://fsfe.org/documents/whyfs.en.html

This is article has a terrible start for the promotion of free software.
It perpetuates the myth that Open Source is a "marketing campaign for
Free Software". It is not. Free Software is about freedom which OSI
doesn't like to talk about. Here's the freedom free explanation of Open
Source on the OSI website <http://opensource.org/>:
"Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the
power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The
promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more
flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in."
They could have tried to get freedom in there, perhaps had "and freedom
from vendor lock-in" but no.

Later the article says "The Free Software Definition of the Free
Software Foundation with its four freedoms is the clearest definition
existing today." but then doesn't have a hyperlink to it.

I'd still recommend "Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software"
over it. It might take a bit more reading and thinking but the title
itself sums things up nicely.

Mike.