Re: [tlug] Fwd: Re: Poll: OpenOffice or LibreOffice?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Bruno Raoult writes:

 > Would not it better to consider this discussion [of the meaning of
 > "free"] as "off-topic"?

Why?  The issues of precisely what "free" as in "free software" means,
of how society responds to that, and of what we can do to promote
free, libre, or open source software are central to the mission of
TLUG, don't you think?

Perhaps some people wish to distinguish free, libre, and open source
software, and others don't see a real difference, but we're in broad
agreement that the freedom to redistribute is essential.  That leads
to software being "cheap", though not truly costless -- and not
necessarily zero-price -- to use.  This makes it easy to confuse --
discussion is useful even for long-time Linux (and Linus) fans.

Discussion of the various forms of Java environments is useful too, as
one gauge of how society is accepting (or demanding) free
vs. proprietary software.

Steve