press release critique

[Stefan Meretz]

Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
> Stefan> > Check out the 4 basic freedoms.  RMS talks about these in every
> Stefan> > speech on Free Software and of course you will find them at
> Stefan> > www.gnu.org and www.fsfeurope.org.  IMHO everyone in the Free
> Stefan> > Software community should know them as well has the basic syntax of
> Stefan> > his favorite programming language.
> Stefan> >
> Stefan> > I think it is in most cases pretty easy to compare some software
> Stefan> > against the freedoms 0 to 3.  They don't say anything about money or
> Stefan> > other ways of compensation - why should they?
> Stefan>
> Stefan> Agreed. Then _please_ talk about freedom, not about making money as
> 
> No, making money is a good motivation to do things. When we say making money with
> free software we then encourage people to make free software.

Completely disagree. Please read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html
"Creativity and intrinsic interest diminish if task is done for gain"

> Telling so has also the advantage of breaking down the misconsception about free software: the
> point is not to be gratis but to be free (libre in french).

I didn't talk about free software being "gratis". I talk about the first goals:
freedom or money.

> About telling that to journalist, I think it is important as well, so they will dig a bit more
> in their reflexion about free software, they can not say easily free software is gratis when
> we tell them we can make good money from it otherwise they will look like idiot.

No, they think, there is no difference to ESR, and they are right.

Ciao,
Stefan

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