Time Nick Message 08:39 kados slef: what if the website said: koha, the first "Free and Open Source" integrated library system 01:52 indradg kados, its the same concerns in the India FLOSS community... "free" conjures up the image of "free bear"... the GPL terms are OK... but most ppl find the whole idea of GPL incomprehensible... on the other hand OSS as a concept doesn't carry the same burden... 21:20 slef be back much later 21:20 slef user of "open source" as in the phrase 21:20 slef The biggest EU user of open source has Adobe (Sklyarov Inside?) as a member and is a spin-off from a club that includes Microsoft. That might suggest the spin it has. 21:19 slef With all the software patent directive working its way through the EU institutions, those who have heard of "open source" go "oh, that again" 21:18 slef kados: use free software and give 'em the FSF 4-point. That, or we should internationalise the koha web site and not use either term. 20:20 kados just my two cents 20:20 kados and although that term does raise questions it isn't dangerous to use it like with the word 'free' 20:19 kados on the other hand, most librarians have heard of open source 20:19 kados americans are really touchy about the word 20:19 kados like they are trying to 'catch you' in your lie ... 'there's no such thing as a free lunch' 20:19 kados slef: In libraries in the US, 'free' is mainly used to refer to cost -- in a recent meeting with a library (potential client) they were totaly confused about why we were charging for something that was free -- it's like once you say the word 'free' here, a red flag goes up and people start being really critical if any money is involved 19:31 shedges part good night 17:03 slef shedges: the first free software integrated library system, maybe 16:18 shedges slef: You'd like to see "Koha, the first free integrated library system" on the home page? 16:17 slef biab 16:16 slef not sure about a free meetup.com - debian mostly does it by negotiation like koha 16:16 slef s/contrib/vendor/ 16:15 slef kados: debian is frozen. We could try to make a contrib package, but we'd also have to package some dependencies or make them optional. 16:14 slef So, it would be a big help to English promotion if koha's marketing included "free software" and/or GPL rather than just "open source" 16:13 slef Most of the meanings of "free" relate to liberty. Only a minority relate to cost, but that's a common first understanding in consumerist societies. 16:12 slef I've written about this before http://mjr.towers.org.uk/writing/ambigopen.html 16:11 slef hi all... "open source" is a term used by UK people like the subject of http://perens.com/Articles/Taylor/ 15:55 shaun I'm off now, night all. btw: my new design is going into proof of concept stage 15:52 shaun lol 15:47 shedges "Koha, the first GPLed integrated library system" 15:46 shedges I guess we could confuse everybody and say 15:46 shedges just looking at the koha page 15:43 shaun I don't know about the whole of the UK, but in my community of work and friends, open source is just some other software. 15:43 shedges (I agree that "volunteers" is probably not a good word to use in the description.) 15:41 shedges sure. You could even say "libraries, businesses and other agencies." 15:41 shaun if instead of the "volunteers" one, we say something about "individuals representing libraries and other agencies" that should be fine, as nobody does koha without a cause, and it makes it sound like a more professional product. 15:41 shedges is "open source" a common term in the UK? 15:40 shedges too bad we couldn't just do it in French -- libre instead of free 15:39 shaun yes 15:39 shedges You're thinking about the description on the koha home page? 15:39 shaun on a separate page then? or linked to the about page? 15:38 shedges too hard to define -- takes too much energy to explain repeatedly 15:38 shaun but if we define "free" in depth, it shouldn't be a problem in that way, imo. 15:36 shedges He makes the point that in the late 90's, as Linux, Apache, etc. started to be intergrated into commercial enterprises, the word "free" became a problem. 15:36 shaun To an end user, particularly a conservative one in a school, "maintained by a team of volunteers" says two things: "nerds" and "unprofessional" 15:35 shedges I've been reading book lately -- "The Success of Open Source" bt Steven Weber 15:34 shaun on the homepage, we make a big thing of "the first open source integrated library system" but there are a few other ILS that are open source (i.e. perl or ASP) which are open source (obviously) but prevent their users from editing code, redistributing it etc, and charge large amounts of money for them - it is those sorts of differences that we need to focus on 15:34 shedges disambiguations? 15:33 shedges ?? such as... 15:31 shaun people who are here, I have been talking to ben about Free/Open Source disambiguations 14:52 shaun hi... is anyone around?