octave presentation, part 2

[Ben Abbott]

On Thursday, November 20, 2008, at 08:08AM, "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo.che.wisc.edu> wrote:
>On 20-Nov-2008, Ben Abbott wrote:
>
>| I would think a simple rewording to "open source-code" would be  
>| sufficient to dodge the issue, no?
>
>What issue are you trying to dodge?

Appartently the one I now find myself engaged in ;-)

>Part of agreeing to make Octave an "official" GNU project is promoting
>the ideals of the GNU project.  You are free to use the terms you
>prefer, but we should not use terms like "open source" in the Octave
>documentation, and I'm asking you to consider saying "free software"
>instead when speaking about Octave.
>
>jwe
>

Personally, I don't think the term "free software" conveys sufficient context to an audience of potential users. Describing software as free does not convey that the source-code is open. 

In any event, I find such ideological discussions demotivating and now regret having offered an opinion at all. I'll try to avoid such going forward ... back to keeping my head down ;-)

Ben