FSF, terminology, and marketing




Marketing Team:

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) encourages the usage of the term
"GNU/Linux" instead of the term "Linux", and also discourages referring
to free software and licenses as "open source".  Their argument, which
I think is valid, is that doing so helps to highlight free software and
bring positive attention towards the free software community.

A few people have recently complained to the board that the GNOME
community sometimes does not always follow these recommendations.  I
imagine that some of these issues are caused by people just not being
thoughtful about the terminology that they use, but I also do not
believe that the GNOME community has an official stance on what language
we should be using.  At any rate, we should probably be consistent with
the language we use in more official GNOME Foundation communications.
So, I think it is good to discuss and find out what the overall GNOME
community thinks about this before making any sort of decision or
encouraging people to use one term or another.

On one hand, since we are a GNU project and since one of the
long-standing objectives of the GNOME community has been to promote
free software, there is a good argument for following these
recommendations and making it a more official policy that we try to
use the terminology recommended by the FSF.

On the other hand, I know that some people in our community feel that
it makes more sense to use the terms "Linux" and "open source" since
they have more traction in the business world, and are more familiar.
We often have trouble explaining what "GNOME" is to people, and it
perhaps makes it harder when we use terms that are unfamiliar or that
do not have traction.  So, there may be situations or types of
communication where going against the FSF recommendations makes sense.
However, if we feel that we should go against the recommendations of the
FSF, we probably should have some solid reasoning for doing so.

Also, I think the GNOME Foundation needs to be sensitive to those
partners with which we have close working relationships.  For example,
we need to be sensitive to what opinions those on the advisory board
might have to say about the terminology we use.  So, I have suggested to
Stormy that we raise this topic at an upcoming advisory board meeting
and find out what they think about this.  Whether or not they care would
likely be an important input to consider in making any decision.

Perhaps it makes sense to use different terms when talking to different
audiences.   Perhaps we should make more of an effort to use the terms
recommended by the FSF when communicating with some audiences, and use
other terms in other situations.  If so, perhaps we need to think about
when it makes sense to use which terms and make this more clear so
people have some guidance about what terms to use and when.

So, I am interested to hear what the GNOME marketing community thinks
about this.  Since many of the documents where we use these terms are
in public-facing documents such as marketing materials, PR, press
releases, etc. I think whatever terms we use should be something that
the marketing team thinks about and has input on any decisions made.

Thoughts?

Brian


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