Re: Questions for the board election candidates

[Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>]

Hi,

On 05/22/2012 09:58 AM, Robert Nordan wrote:
> 1) "Open Source" or "Free Software"?
>
> This is about personal philosophy: Do you prefer the pragmatism of the
> Open Source Initiative or the political idealism of the Free Software
> Foundation? (Some of the candidates have already flagged a stance on
> this.)

Please don't equate Open Source and "pragmatism", and Free Software and 
"idealism". This suggests that Free Software is not also pragmatic, or 
that Open Source developers are not idealists. This is a pet hate of 
mine, and frames anyone who calls themselves a Free software developer 
as not living in the real world. Free Software is all about pragmatic 
idealism - using the system against itself to give users rights we feel 
they should have as software authors.

And, in fact, Open Source is also about pragmatic idealism - using a 
different brand for the same thing to avoid an unfortunate ambiguity 
doesn't change the fact that Open Source developers also care about 
giving users rights they would not otherwise have.

Thanks,
Dave.

--
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary gnome org
Jabber: nearyd gmail com