Calling it (edit: using the term) "free software" is a great example of utterly failing to promote your own principles, and stabbing the entire mission in the face.

Let's try to repurpose an incredibly widely used pre-existing term, that means almost the opposite of the essence of our entire mission, to mean our mission. And every time people tell us that's moronic, we double down. As we continue to watch people somehow totally miss the point of the mission, but surely the fact that we're mind-bogglingly self-sabotaging at advocacy can't have anything to do with that. We should totally keep stabbing ourselves in the face.

IMHO, it is one of the most shameful failures of marketing of the last century.

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TheFreim 5 days ago | parent [-]

Flatpak is unambiguously and undeniably free and open source software and the fact that you think it isn't demonstrates that you have been misinformed. The Flatpak project is licensed with the LGPL. Furthermore, the vast majority of software packaged with Flatpak is free and open source software.

https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak

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neilv 5 days ago | parent [-]

No, I'm saying that you are making the advocacy mistake of using the term "free software".

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marcus_holmes 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don't understand this. The software is free. But calling it "free software" is a mistake?

And I don't understand the advocacy angle. Is any reference to "free" or "open" in any tech-related conversation automatically advocacy (even if the author did not intend to be an advocate for it)?

Genuinely curious. Apologies if it doesn't read like genuine curiosity, I am genuinely curious.

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neilv 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

There are specific philosophies and missions behind various kinds of software for which you might have access to the source code.

The most formalized and principled original one, was unfortunately named "free software". (Where RMS expects to be able to explain that it doesn't mean "you don't have to pay money for it" like everyone already thought, but he wants it to actually means "free as in freedom". And he imagines having this conversation, and people being intrigued by the wordplay, etc.)

Of course what happened is that everyone wanted stuff without paying money for it, which is fine, but most people never learned the principles behind the various philosophies, nor why they are that way. Installing a Linux-based software distro is the same as downloading a freebie "community version" of software decidedly not in the same spirit, is the same as downloading a cracked version -- it's all just "free".

A related thing happened with the Internet, in a sense. The early people tended to be egalitarian and principled, and actively onboarded new people into the culture, etc. But when the dotcom gold rush happened, most of that was quickly swept aside. And most of what was already known and taught about cooperative online behavior was never even learned.

	▲	marcus_holmes 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Thanks for replying and explaining.

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FergusArgyll 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Maybe they're confusing it with snaps?