What's in a name?

Craige McWhirter <[email protected]> Fri, 12 Feb 2016 17:18:32 +1000

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.australia
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

"that which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet;"
-- William Shakespeare

With some of the recent discussions about whether the name "Linux
Australia" is reflective of the complete range of our activities (I'm of
the opinion that it no longer is), the name "Open Source Australia" is
one of the more popular names suggested.

With this in mind, I recently heard a representative of the Software
Freedom Conservancy[0] make the following statement:

"...the Free Software movement was overshadowed by this business
interest in it, called OpenSource and we're in an ironic moment where
more & more Free Software is being written every day...but I'm more
likely to encounter a situation where I'm trying to get a job done or do
something in the world where proprietary software is necessary."

A rather big distinction is made between Free Software and Open Source
software[1].

I'm interested in the community's opinion on this distinction. Is Mr
Shakespeare correct or does the distinction between the names matter?


[0] https://sfconservancy.org/
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source#The_emergence_of_the_.22open_source.22_term

-- 
Craige McWhirter
M: +61 4685 91819
W: https://mcwhirter.com.au/
GNUSocial: craige-rMNLlfxwKfGdGDxdV5gXhy2rumGo/[email protected]

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