freeware != free software??? Re: Navigation

[Viktor Lindberg]

On Tue, Jan 05, 2010 at 03:39:42PM +0000, Neil Jerram wrote:
> 2010/1/5 Viktor Lindberg <leth at leth.yi.org>:
> >
> > The Open Source Movement have instead choosen to abandom the ethical
> > principle of freedom and only promote the use of Open Source software
> > that might not be libre (free as in freedom), which is not the same
> > idea as the Free Software movement has. [...] Not just open for anyone to examine as is the case with Open
> > Source.
> 
> FWIW, that is not my understanding.  I believe that the practical
> requirements of Open Source and Free Software are mostly identical.
> The difference is one of philosophical emphasis: the Open Source
> movement chooses to emphasize practical and tangible benefits from
> using and working on their projects, whereas the Free Software
> movement emphasizes freedom, even if it means working in the short
> term with an inferior product.

I don't wish to be rude but you're not actually contradicting anything
i'm saying afaict thought you are putting the words diffrently to
emphasis that Open Source would have a better technical solution, i'm
not sure that is the case, it might be true to some extent yes. But
when you have virtues and value ethics highly you might have to avoid
certain methods which you consider evil to some extent.

And frankly to use any GNU/Linux distribution as an example, Free
Software is not that technically inferior. In fact most GNU/Linux
systems are have a much higher rate of free software as part of the
system then non free open source software. There are even
distributions that have strict policies agains including non free
software that works perfectly well with perhaps the small exceptions
of some few hardware drivers, in this case you can just avoid buying
hardware from vendors who completle ignores the call for free software.

Not to forget OpenBSD which is 100% Free Software and is renown for
being a really good technical solution.

Yes it is true that the Open Source movement likes to focus on the
technical advantages of Open Source Software, but it's not true to say
that good technical solution is ignored by the Free Software
movement. However the big diffrence lies as you said in the
philosophical part, that ethical apsects of software freedom, thus
somtimes the Free Software movement is sometimes happy with a
suboptimal solution for the sake of moral issues. (in my case i
consider linux a subotpimal technical solution, but it allows for me
to run a fully free OS)

> I hope that's useful to someone (and correct!) ...
> 
>         Neil
> 
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