LWN.net Logo

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Jul 31, 2003 17:31 UTC (Thu) by jdthood (guest, #4157)
In reply to: Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail) by dooglio
Parent article: Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

> I think she was laboring under a false notion that everyone
> involved with Linux and open source in general must somehow
> be anti-captialist.

Few if any people in the community are against the free market system.
RMS has the most radical views, and even those go only so far as to
say that software should not be ownable.

> I'm not sure what a good replacement for the word "free"
> might be for the lay person, but we need to spell out that
> the OS is really "restriction free"

You've just come up with a good replacement. :)


(Log in to post comments)

Good but incorrect...

Posted Jul 31, 2003 20:28 UTC (Thu) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

Linux is not restriction-free: it is Livre, Libre, free as in "free speech", Free
Software. But not restriction-free.
You COULD say it's objection-free, tough :-)

Good but incorrect...

Posted Aug 1, 2003 10:08 UTC (Fri) by jdthood (guest, #4157) [Link]

I think that a better replacement would be 'open' --
not 'open source' but simply 'open'. 'Open' is a warm,
fuzzy term that connotes both the openness of the source
_and_ the openness of the possibilities to use, study,
modify and distribute. _And_ the open-endedness of the
movement, its openness to participants, and so on. Of
course, the term might be open to abuse.

Good but incorrect...

Posted Aug 3, 2003 2:20 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (subscriber, #7544) [Link]

Your definition of "open" requires the listener interpret it the same way that you do. It's rampantly exploitable. Shared Source lets (a few) people see (some bits of) code. Sound's "open" to me.

How does "open" connote "the openess of the possiblity to [...] distribute"?
Kinda stretching it there, aren't you ;p

What good is "open" software without the freedom to modify it and redistribute modified versions?

"Unfettered" is a pretty good replacement to "Free" but in the end, it's the freedom that's important.

Ciaran O'Riordan

Copyright © 2008, Eklektix, Inc.
Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds