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FSFE President Urges Community To Strengthen Open Source As a Brand

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the someone-better-tackle-stallman dept.

Georg Greve, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), has an insightful look at FOSS from a brand perspective with urgings that the community come together and strengthen open source as a unified brand. "There are plenty of false enemies to go around. Ironically, the most common form of false enemy is found around the animosity that has built around branding and framing issues, more specifically in the area of 'Free Software' vs 'Open Source.' Name-calling and quarreling on either side is not helpful, and serves to hide the common base and interest in having a strong brand and powerful message. The historical facts around Free Software are well documented and available to anyone who wishes to look them up. But instead of focusing on past insults and wrongs, I believe our focus should be on the future. We should realize that what divides us pales in comparison to what we have in common and that division and exclusion are harmful to us all. So we should rein in the name-callers on either side, and empower those people who know how to build cooperation, corporations, and positive feedback loops."

1 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. The pragmatist by westlake · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    A pure open source enthusiast..will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

    The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but not at the price of my freedom. So I have to do without it

    That solves the problem for the activist.

    Everyone else just wants to watch the movie.

    Their voice counts too.

    Software breaks down into fundamental categories: Programs for your business. Programs for your home.

    Neither environment is much known as a hotbed of political correctness.

    Ideological purity.

    There is simply too much that needs to get done. There are other and a deeper rewards than self-flagellation while hovering over your keyboard.

    The good tool is something to be treasured.

    The cost doesn't matter all that much. That it limits your freedom in some insubstantial and arbritrary way doesn't really matter all that much either.

    The tool can be replaced. What you can't retrieve is time.