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Georg C. F. Greve wrote:
|| On Thu Jun 8 16:20:45 2006 || shane at shaneland.co.uk (Shane M. Coughlan) wrote:
smc> This approach ties Free Software into the company mission smc> statement rather than the company development model.
This seems to hint towards a fundamental misunderstanding that is relatively common and was promoted by the "Open Source" attempts at marketing Free Software, so is probably worth pointing out: Free Software is *not* a development model! This is relatively obvious when taking a look at the Free Software Definition, [1,2] which does not mention the development model, at all. Whether something is Free Software is purely determined by the freedom it gives to its users and developers, not how it is being developed by them.
Free Software is a concept fundamentally grounded in ethics. However, a company needs to understand how this concept can apply to their operational model. Adoption of free software in a company means a shift away from the mindset that accepted propriety software. This shift inherently implies altering the way that company works. A company will want to know about Free Software development models (being those models used by Free Software development projects) so that they can access the practical value of adoption (be it partially or otherwise).
But the development model is *not* the issue, freedom is.
Agreed. However, I was referring to our model or goal as being one of promoting technological freedom. This freedom is assumed to have tangible benefits for both the developers and users of free software. Freedom is the core issue for society, but for a company their perceived core issue is bottom line. We know that freedom *can* give them benefits, and we know that in time they will see that.
It is important to engage with the businesses in such a way as to promote Free Software to them, and that frequently means talking about how they can alter development models and understanding of software to become compatible with Free Software aims without compromising profit margin.
In other words, freedom is the issue but we have to 'sell' freedom to companies. They need to gets facts, figures and practical advice about how Free Software can help their development and deployment models today. Inevitably this translates into questions about systems rather than ideas. If we can provide the systems and inject the ideas we have won on both fronts; practical adoption and a greater awareness by the adopter of why freedom is important.
Shane
- -- Shane Martin Coughlan e: shane@opendawn.com m: +447773180107 (UK) +353862262570 (Ire) w: www.opendawn.com - --- OpenPGP: http://www.opendawn.com/shane/publickey.asc