Re: [school-discuss] Re: [seul-edu] Software Freedom Season

[Paolo Pumilia <xpol@interfree.it>]

From Burkhard Woelfel, Thu Oct 03, at  7:32:
 .I have a serious problem with promoting the term "Open Source" 
 .though, because I think the infectious quality of the GPL is crucial: 
 .Once Free Software, always Free Software. Please correct me if I am 
 .wrong:  "Open Source" is a trademark which refers to the Open Source 
 .Definition [1] , which does not demand that viral feature. That does 
 .not say that software compliant to the OSD must be badly licensed. 
 .But whenever I read "Open Source[TM]", I think of the BSD-licensed 
 .code that is working[2] inside my medieval MS Windows installation.
 .Such a kind of derivative work is not my definition of "Open 
 .Source". 
 .

I know something about that gpl 'viral' feature, but i am not an expert to
tell which cases it is the best license to use. I do not want (i am not
qualified to) to discuss such topic in detail, but i am rather sure that 
different licenses best fit different kind of software applications.

 .I see no such problems with the term "Free Software". It may not be a 
 .trademark, but it is easy to explain. 
 .I stick to "Free Software", and whenever I don't want to raise an 
 .argument I simply specify the license I am talking about. I have 
 .found the discussions far less emotional talking about licenses, not 
 
Let me notice that a cultural movement cannot be stated in a software
license, rather it requires the formulation of a set of principles and 
methods, that necessarily are to be interpreted by a large community and 
pass through different cultural contexts that make them grow. 
If you stick to a license, you will esperience diffuculties in discussing
with your collegues (software programmers or sys admin, i guess) and much 
more with people with a different background. 

In short, I am interested in a cultural movement, even at the risk to use 
a wrong software license, sometimes. 



 .I appreciate those ideas very much. 
 ."Open Source" could have been a beautiful name, a strong social 
 .metaphor, not only refering to source code.
 .Can you understand why it rings a different bell in my ears?

I think so
I hope you will change your mind 


best regards. 

--
Paolo Pumilia