

The Free Software Movement... was never about Free Software - kanebennett
http://entrepreneurship.mit.edu/blog/elliotcmitedu/free-software-movement-was-never-about-free-software

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briandoll
I'm not a fan of this strange rebranding of "The Free Software Movement".

This article and apparently the one it directly counters, are discussing the
"Freemium Business Model", "Ad-Supported Business Model" and "Platform-Play",
while discussing "When Software Should not be Free".

These things have absolutely nothing to do with Free Software. Sorry to get
all RMS on this post, but I think it does a disservice to both topics (Free
Software and SaaS business models), each of which are interesting, but not
when confused with one another.

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naner
This is confusing. "Free Software" and "Free Software Movement" alludes to the
original GPL and Stallman who manipulated copyright law to enforce his
philosophy on software (software freedom and all that jazz).

This appears to be about web sites and business models and not software
licensing. Not that I hold it against this guy, but when we don't all use
these terms the same way it gets confusing.

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etree
I wrote the blog post. I suppose you guys are right - poor choice of
terminology. I read Kane's post - which was mostly about why he isn't going to
release his software for free anymore. I started thinking about the business
reasons why i release software for free (which i do sometimes, but not always)
and it occurred to me that i use it as a tool to allow me to more quickly test
out an idea. That was really the main point i was trying to make. I will try
and update the post tonight to make the language more consistent with the
point i was actually making (focusing on testing hypotheses to mitigate risks
as a startup and using a freely available product to help test those).

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Deejahll
Fourteen mentions of "Free Software" and neither this article's author nor the
article he mentions seems to know anything about the actual Free Software
movement. The author he replies to has even modified his article after being
corrected on this point.

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leoc
I feel a missive from RMS on the way.

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bane
Wait...is this confusing free-as-in-beer with free-as-in-freedom?

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Hemospectrum
Yes.

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Stormbringer
Wait wait wait. Where the *&#$ do I go to get free beer?!?!

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tbrownaw
Bah. I was hoping for something about how it's really about non-proprietary
interfaces, or collective laziness (in the LazinessImpatienceHubris sense), or
the passivation/consumerization of society, or power hierarchy vs
egalitarianism, or... ... but no, it's just about the multiple meanings of
"free" in english.

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trotsky
Next on the blogroll, "Social Networking Startups": A review of new bars in my
area.

