Re: Shut Up With The Open Source Politics, OK?

Though the concepts of "gratis" and "libre" are related concepts,
they are still not the same concept. And when the a term that
could mean *either* one of those two things is used to reffer to
software, which *also* can be either one without being both,
it can be confusing to many.

Also, in Hebrew "bekhinam" means "gratis" and "khofshi"
means "libre".

Let's face it, if we're to win the public-relations wars,
we're going to need distinct English terms for the two
concepts as well.

Let's face it, there's no ethical reason why software has
to be "gratis". Someone put time and effort into making
the software, so be glad you don't have to do *that* yourself.
It's no big deal having to shell out a few dollars to avoid
having to write everything from scratch. However, it *is*
important for software to be "libre".

Also, if we use the term "free" and people can associate
it with "gratis", it won't be hard for businesses to convince
everyone that having more "free" software will down the
economy and cost everyone their jobs. If you argue that
we should *prevent* them from over-associating the term
"free" in "free software" with "gratis", I must remind
you that the corporations can and will make that uphill
task impossible. This ambiguity can not be fought. It
*must* be bypassed.

That reminds me, by the way, of how many philosophers rarely
use the word "love" in their texts, and instead use four
different Latin (or is it Greek?) words to reffer to four
different *kinds* of love.



John wrote:

>On 10 Oct 2003 at 9:40, The Rev. Shamim, D.D., LFHCfS wrote:
>
>>beliefs behind it. It is unfortunate that in English, the word "free"
>>means both "libre" and "gratis."
>>
>
>No it's not unfortunate, the two concepts are related, and the best things in life are free.
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