Re: New GNOME.Asia Summit website launched

[Frederic Muller <fredm gnome org>]

Made the changes within the direction of your comments. I do however 
have some comments further feedback (below):

On 03/24/2011 09:39 AM, Richard Stallman wrote:
>      While I think you have a strong point about the missing message about
>      GNOME and free software I believe a lot of people outside of the US (at
>      least) use the expression 'Open Source' as a synonym of Free Software.
>
> People who think they are synonymous have misunderstood the substance
> of either free software or open source.  In my experience, most often
> they have misunderstood the substance of free software.  They have
> heard the idea labeled "open source" and they think that "free
> software" is the same idea.
>
> Teaching them the truth about this is a high priority for us.  We want
> them to know what "free software" really stands for.  First we have to
> show them it is not the same as "opensource".

For a lot of people opensource represents what you call Free Software. 
Language evolves, mentality change. Is what really matters the 
terminology or the intention in which people do things and care? Not 
using the words behind which people associate their passions is missing 
out on including them and not something I want to be doing. Sure we can 
educate them about proper English or proper history/semantic but we 
shouldn't either make them feel guilty or exclude them. I want them to 
look at the site and feel it's for them too, because it is. And I could 
add that the term freedom is a poorly chosen word in some context/area 
of the world (which has somewhat forced communities to chose OSS 
instead). But we're getting off topic now. :-)


>       I
>      prefer to unite the potentially "2 communities" (assuming they are
>      split).
>
> They aren't "two communities" -- they are two philosophical camps
> within one community.  Sometimes they can work together, but they can't
> unite unless people change their views.  We might wish to convince all
> open source supporters to change their views, but realistically speaking
> it is not likely they will.

Considering the hatred from some on either side it has become 2 
communities. Some definitely don't want to participate in anything 
associated with Free Software, while others refuse to attend anything 
associated with Open Source. So they both have their little groups of 
people highlighting the differences...

> Please set up your site to help educate viewers about free software
> and what it stands for.

In fact in all the FOSS that you said should be removed they were used 
in the context of "biggest FOSS event in xxx country" which in that 
context is important to keep. It was not at all referring to any 
ideology or development methodology but to a group of conferences 
covering either or both thus making it important to keep it that way (I 
replaced with the full wordings).

I just removed Open Source in the goal section as promoting Free 
Software also advocates for the open source development model though 
encompasses the bigger picture.

>      I would be happy to
>      hear how you would advertise in 4/5 words the session where we're trying
>      to encourage local IT services companies to embrace free software and
>      show them that they can run a business around it?
>
> How about...
>
> Run Your Business on Freedom
> Your Business deserves Freedom too
I picked "Boost your business with Free Software" which unfortunately 
removes GNOME from the slogan but has the advantage to keep a fairly 
accurate summary of what the session is about and makes you happy too.

Anyway thank you for your feedback as it definitely helped us to rewrite 
some sections in a much better way.

Fred