On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 12:45:48PM +0000, Mat Witts wrote:
People that promote Free Software know about what that means, people that promote Open Source may or may not, so whereas a Free Software advocate is obviously committed to (at the very least) ideas of communitarian living, an Open Source advocate is likely to be either 1) Confused; 2) Pro-business - which at the very least means pro-capitalism and centrist or right of center on the political spectrum; 3) Both confused and pro-business
You are projecting your own political beliefs onto everyone in the Free Software movement. My preferred term is Free Software because I believe individual freedom to be the highest political goal or utility and Free Software safeguards every individual's freedom and control over their devices. I have no communitarian leanings beyond recognizing that cooperating in communities is a valid exercise of any individual's freedom of association, and I am decidedly pro-business as a valid exercise of individual freedom too.
The Free Software definition says nothing about the way Free Software should be developed. The definition is not pro-communitarian or anti-business, and hence any movement based on promoting the definition is not pro-communitarian or anti-business either or it has already failed.
While I prefer the term Free Software, I also recognize that in the vast majority of cases contributions from people whose preferred term is Open Source also lead to increased individual choice and control over their device. This is true of contributions from large corporations too, and where any particular user disagrees with the corporation's direction, they are free to fork the project. Less complaining and more use of the four freedoms would be entirely appropriate in such cases.