Re: Boy Scout Open Source

["Jerry Feldman-2" <user=4@nabble.blu.org>]

 On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:09:50 -0400 
MBR <[hidden email]> wrote: 

> I completely agree with your proposed topics.  I'd also like to suggest 
> that the very issue you note, i.e. that "there are also some 
> misconceptions as to what OSS is" is itself a legitimate and important 
> topic for a future meeting.  The fact that the general public (including 
> most in the media) misunderstands what's meant by Open Source Software 
> or what's meant by Free Software is a crucial weapon used against F/OSS 
> by the promoters of proprietary software.  So those of us in the 
> technical community need to brainstorm with non-techies in order to come 
> up with a simple description of F/OSS that's: 
> 
>    1. 
> 
>       easily understood by non-techies, 
> 
>    2. 
> 
>       quickly conveys the benefits non-techies derive from F/OSS to 
>       non-techies so they feel they have a reason to care abuot F/OSS, and 
> 
>    3. 
> 
>       embodies the core concepts of F/OSS as intended by those of us who 
>       do understand its intent 
> 
> For such a simplified explanation, it would probably introduce way too 
> much complexity to explain that there are now 10s (100s?  1,000s?  I've 
> lost count.) of F/OSS licenses, and instead focus on what the problem 
> was that Stallman was trying to solve when he first came up with 
> copyleft in the late 1970s, and how F/OSS licenses solve the problem.