[Pan-users] Re: [OT] Linux vs GNU/Linux vs Freedomware Linux Was: Gmime

[Duncan]

Yavor Doganov <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Thu, 17
Aug 2006 11:33:03 +0300:

> I like that, but remember that "freedomware" and "slaveryware" are
> words that you (or somebody else, I don't know) made up -- they don't
> exist in the English language.  It is true that "Free Software" is
> ambiguous, but so far it is the best term and all ambiguity vanishes
> if you explain that it is a matter of freedom, not zero price (that
> is, if you're giving a speech or persuading somebody).  OTOH, in most
> languages, when we say "Free Software" the word "free" is clearly
> derived from "freedom", "liberty", so there is no problem.

About the "best term" point...  What about "Libreware", or the longer form
"Libre Software"?  Given the well known English flexibility in grabbing
words from other languages when they suit the purpose, and the coming
dominance in the US anyway of folks with Spanish language roots, "gratis"
and "libre" are already in limited usage, probably mostly regional. 
(Gratis actually has historical roots going back some time as just looking
it up in kdict, it's listed in 1913 Webster's.  Libre unfortunately isn't
similarly rooted.)  Libreware has certainly been adopted by certain
portions of what is now known as the FLOSS community, formerly FOSS,
before Libreware.  What is your opinion of the relative merit of freedom
vs free vs libre?  As you've seen, I prefer "freedom", as the most direct
English translation of "Libre", which I adopted as soon as I saw the first
coverage of Peru's Villanueva's work, my introduction to "libre software",
due to the issues with "free" in the English language.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman