Deliberately Obtuse

I'm sorry, but this post is nonsense. There's almost nothing more annoying than deliberate obtuseness about open source and free software.

Comments

Re: Deliberately Obtuse

Author: Paul Ramsey

Deliberately obtuse, or just another clear demonstration that using the word "free" causes most people to draw the wrong conclusions about the most important aspect of the software. If the meaning is only clear to a small in-group, then it is not a useful word for wide communication, it's jargon, and we should stick to arguing the finer points over beers, and use some other word for general communication.

Re: Deliberately Obtuse

Author: Allan

I dare say that Jeff knows enough about the software industry to understand what is meant by "Free" when it's part of the "FOSS" acronym. And, no, there's nothing more or less pure about "freeness". It's pretty nearly binary. It's either Free or it's not. The free-o-meter is here.

Re: Deliberately Obtuse

Author: Sean

Indeed, Allan. Paul, I think Oracle (at the root of the discussion linked by Jeff Thurston) is also fully aware of the meaning of free in this context.

Re: Deliberately Obtuse

Author: Paul Ramsey

Some software that is free is not actually Free. And some software that is Free is not free. And some software is both free and Free at the same time. And finally lots of software is neither free nor Free. Yeah, that's crystal clear, there's no way the Oracle submitters made an honest mistake... *cough*

Re: Deliberately Obtuse

Author: Allan

If the Oracle submitters made a mistake, then is the best way to teach them to (a) let them in but don't say anything or (b) respond to them that they may have misunderstood and perhaps after doing some additional reading they may want to show how their workshop addresses the issue? Perhaps the FOSS4G2007 web site could include a bit more guidance on this... *cough*

Re: Deliberately Obtuse

Author: Paul Ramsey

I see, the problem is not that we are using obscure language, it is that we are not *explaining* our obscure language well enough. Anyways, obviously we will be explaining the issue to the Oracle submitters, but I feel bad about having baited them into the mistake in the first place with misleading language.