Re: Questions for the board election candidates

[Robert Nordan <rpvn robpvn net>]

On Tue, 2012-05-22 at 10:35 +0200, Dave Neary wrote:
> 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.
> 

I'm so sorry, I was not intending to imply that one was better than the
other or that they are diametrically opposed. Let me rephrase the
question: "Do you prefer the Open Source Initiative approach to
pragmatic idealism or the Free Software Foundation approach to pragmatic
idealism?"



-- 
Robert Nordan <rpvn robpvn net>