Re: [Fsfe-uk] Liberated software

[Paul Tansom]

On Wed, 6 Oct 2004 13:44:24 +0100
Chris Croughton <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 06, 2004 at 12:55:51PM +0100, Sam Liddicott wrote:
> > The trouble with "free software" is that people already think they
> > know what it means.
> 
> Yes, that's my point exactly (in about a tenth of the words I used!).
> "Liberated Software" does sound rather as though it was once captive
> (software I write has never been non-free), but apart from that it
> sounds good...

It puts me in mind of games for the Spectrum and other retro
computers where the copyright holder has allowed the free distribution
of copies (binary or tape archives) for use with the surviving machines
or emulators. I'm not sure whether it has been used in that context or
not, but I'm not sure as it quite fits with the context of FLOSS, FOSS
or Open Source software. It's a tough one though given the various
slightly differing views of 'free' and 'open source' software in
different contexts - free to distribute, free to look at the source,
free to copy, free to modify, free to charge people for it; open source
for viewing, open source for modifying, open source for copying; etc.,
etc., etc.! A real nightmare!

-- 
Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/