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Sun's COO Distorts Free In Free Software

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the he-got-free-as-in-beer-mixed-up-with-free-as-in-freedom dept.

sebFlyte writes "Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's COO and president, said at JavaOne that 'the most important initial in free and open source software, to me, if you want to reach the broadest marketplace in the world there's one price that works for everyone, and that's free". As you can imagine, this interpretation of 'free' in terms of software has angered a few people somewhat, including Richard Stallman..." From the article: "The free software movement stands for 'free' as in freedom. The open source campaign doesn't present freedom as an ethical issue, but it still formulates its criteria in terms of what users are permitted to do,"

1 of 346 comments (clear)

  1. Should be: RMS Distorts Free In Free Software by batkiwi · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Seriously. The phrase "Free Software" as RMS uses it is so worthless that starting from scratch with a new term would be better than continuing this debacle.

    If I said I was going to give you "Free Accomidation," would you take that as:
    1. You can stay at my place for no cost
    or
    2. I am transferring full rights of my place to you, including the ability to change the wallpaper in my bathrooms, rearrange my living room, and if you wanted, bulldoze the house and put up a tent?

    If Toyota has a contest for a "FREE CAR," do they give you the car, or the car + rights to the technology in the car + the plans to make the car + schematics of the electrical system + source code to the ECU + ....

    I mean, for fuck's sake, call it "Unrestricted Software." There. I've done it. Problem solved.

    Hell, it even has a cool meme. "'US' is software for all of us".