Quinn Weaver writes: > All right, this sparring has gone on long enough. It's clear that the > movements involved have irreconcilable philosophical differences. No, I think this issue *can* be reconciled and I further believe it to be in the interests of free software businesses for us to do so. Dissension among the ranks is debilitating, and is fodder for our competitors. Here's how I propose that Richard deal with us. First, he should acknowledge that the free software movement is inevitably part of the open source movement, simply because his goals form a part of our goals. We, too, want to see a world free of the scourge of proprietary software. We can't abandon the cause of software freedom even if we wanted to. The GPL is the first Open Source license for a reason (http://opensource.org/licenses/). Second, he should position "Free Software" as the pure form of "Open Source". One slogan he could use is "We're the FSF. We put the Freedom in Open Source". Then, rather than having to explain how awful we are for not saying "Freedom", he will have people enquiring "Freedom? In Open Source? What do you mean?" Then he can give his positive message of freedom instead of his negative message of a split in the movement. Third, OSI should tell people "If you want freedom, go to the FSF. They put the Freedom in Open Source", and not shy away from the issue of freedom. Part of the reason we never mention freedom is because RMS has conflated freedom with ethical judgements. I'd like to be able to say "Open Source gives you the freedom to run your own business, instead of being run over by your software." This message is similar to the way organic food[1] is marketed by organic farmers. They don't say "We're not farmers, we're Organic food producers". That would be silly and nobody would believe them. It would be a completely uphill battle to persuade people that organic farmers are not farmers. Instead, they say (with some reason) that organic food is fresher, tastier, and free of chemicals. Organic food is pure food. It's hard to market something by saying what you're not. At the Linux World Expo, the FSF booth had a sign saying something like "We are the FSF. We're NOT a part of the Open Source movement...." Imagine if Avis said "Rent from us. We're NOT Hertz." Blah. Thanks, I think I'll rent from Hertz if it's all the same to you. No, they said "We're #2. We try harder."[2] [1] Note that the "Organic Food" idea came from Michael Tiemann, who is an overwhelmingly clever person. He saw me holding two Linux iPAQs running X and immediately said "Gee, you could run them as one side-by-side X display". What a hack! Pure genius! [2] http://www.federaldirect.net/offwhite2.html -- -russ nelson http://russnelson.com | Crypto without a threat Crynwr sells support for free software | PGPok | model is like cookies 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | without milk. Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX |