K5: 'Is Richard Stallman's Fight For "GNU/Linux" Suicide?'

[Kristian A. Rink]

And Frank Heckenbach <frank at g-n-u.de> gave word to the following thoughts:

>You might argue that it's not worth trying to make people change
>their "definitions", but then remember that most people associate
>"free software" with "freeware", i.e. usually with free beer, no
>source, no support software, and we'll also have to make them change
>this "definition" since we don't want to talk about "open source".

I agree whole-heartedly on that... Bad thing I see is that, right now,
right here, obviously one of the main arguments to make people move over to
use GNU/Linux that is used in press and media sometimes is the fact that
it's pretty inexpensive to, for example, get a fully operational server
working while relying on GNU/Linux software. That's where most of the
computer-related press and even (which even more disappoints me) an
annoyingly big part of the Linux (not GNU) followers I had the chance to
talk to, lately, in the end yet get back to the fact of seeing GNU/Linux
the "free as in free beer" way. This is horrifying to me, seems there's a
lot of work left for us to even get quite a lot of the Linux folks to fully
and whole-heartedly support not just open-source but *free* software.

Anyhow, second thing which I am quite often experiencing here is the fact
to try to provide people not yet related to GNU/Linux and the GNU idea
itself with information about where is the difference between "freeware"
and "free software". I mean, how to explain this sort of "freedom" to
someone who's not even aware of what "source code" actually is? I'd really
need some argumentation help, in this point. :)

Regards, have a good nite everyone...
Kris

--
Kristian Rink
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...meine seele flieht zurueck,
...bis wo vor tausend vergessenen jahren
...der vogel und der wehende wind
...mir aehnlich und meine brueder waren.
(hermann hesse)
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