Essay RFC delayed.

[Jacques Chester]

RMS wrote:
>    How do Open Source projects differ from the above?
>    In two very important ways.  Firstly, OSPs have no
>    time-bound.  That is, there is no deadline whereby
>    the next version of GNOME has to be delivered, "or
>
>I agree entirely with your argument, but the words raise a background
>issue so important I have to make a correction.
>
>GNOME is part of the GNU Project, and we are part of the Free Software
>movement, not the Open Source movement.  We and they do similar
>things, and we can work together in practice, but our philosophical
>reasons are as different as could be.

While some may criticise Richard his ideological
bent, I do feel that the ideological *and* pragmatic
aspects of this kind of open/freedomware have
advanced it. I tend not to think that either is the
*real* reason.

To snipe at ideology is, in my view, as irrational
as the worst excesses of ideologies themselves.
Reference rabid McCarthyism for this kind of madness.
I agree that democracy is a rationally better system;
but the dogged, fanatical pursuit of communism and
communists was just that - fanatical. Irrational.

>Could you kindly cite GNOME as an example of the Free Software
>movement, not one of the Open Source movement?  Please don't
>spread the idea that the latter one includes all of us.

My first personal formulation of Open Source was
that it formed a useful relabelling of the thing
at hand. I felt that neatly dealt with the ambiguity
of 'free'. However, as the FSF and the OSI have
continued to follow their own lines of canon, I
come to believe that they are different.

Out of the fact that GNOME is a part of the GNU
project, and out of respect for the wishes of 
Richard, GNOME will be a Free Software project.
Indeed, in most of my drafting I prefer to stick to
the moniker "Free Software", simply to avoid
inflaming this kind of nastiness. I will *not*
however, be choosing to label it "Free Software"
to stop spreading "wrong thought". That, Richard,
is your fight - you can fight it for yourself,
thankyou.

I do admire the core principle of Stallmanism:
freedom is paramount. I have, however, aired
various criticisms of the philosophy from within
the license-discuss forum; the "Freedom without
Choice" issue being a principle one. Perhaps in
a fashion that was a little too strawmanesque,
I likened the GPL's forcible freedom to liberation
at the hands of the Red Army: yes, you are now
Freed, but forced to be Free under *our* terms.

To be honest, I do not think it matters to the code.
All these factions are grandstanding over something
that will be the same in a hundred years time. The
audience, less and less, is the hackers: the audience
is more and more a more mainstream press rabidly
wanting to know of dissension and bickering.

The true strength of free/openware will not come from
its selling point. It will come from the freedom. Even
after every ideology has come and gone, the code is
protected and will remain. And *that*, gentlemen, is
what *I* see as the greatest strength.

Apologies for what has been a wide divergence off the
topic at hand.

JC.