[Linux-aus] Open source: time for a name change?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Thursday,  7 August 2003 at 15:11:50 +0930, Dan Shearer wrote:
>
> I've never heard a physicist correcting public speakers about the
> term "quantum leap", which is usually used in a sense that means the
> opposite of what it really is.

Heh.  Yes, that's one of my favourites too.  But nothing you've said
is a good argument for advocating misleading terminology.  Why not
just call it "windows"?

>> Alone we can't, of course.  But the term "free software" used to be
>> mainstream, and somebody changed that perception.
>
> Trying to do this again sounds a bit like quixotic.

That depends very much on the degree of success you expect.

> The "Open Source" movement has done that once, and it was a clever
> move, with continuing success in technical circles. But to do the
> same for the man in the street?

My understanding was that the term "open source" was aimed at
non-technical people, those who found the term "free software" to be a
little hard to digest.  Not quite the man in the street, agreed.

> By all means try, but why? Just live with the wrong things being
> called Linux and make sure that the right things are being run :-)

Because I'm unreasonable.

  The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
  persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore all
  progress depends on the unreasonable man.

                -- George Bernard Shaw

Greg
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