[Fsf-friends] FSF vs OSI ?

[Ramanraj K]

  Krishna Pagadala wrote:

>From the list, my understanding of what people on the
>list are trying to do, are
>1) Spread free software
>2) Talk about freedoms provided, and ask people to
>   reject freedom-subtracted software on ethical
>   grounds.
>3) Get government to use free software
>Note that 1 and 3 are done by OSF also, only 2 above
>is anathema to OSF.
>
The OSF may be called OSI (Open Source Initiative), as they call 
themselves. I think in reality, both FSF and OSI speed ahead in the same 
direction and both value freedom, inspite of the acrimonious debates on 
terminology.  The OSI considers "open source" a sales pitch for "free 
software", or a label for business.  This superficial labelling is fine 
for businesses governed by the caveat emptor rule, but there are no 
excuses for government endowed with "legislative wisdom" to toe this 
line of OSI.  Authority in a democracy is derived from the faculty of 
collective reasoning, and so we have a special responsibility to throw 
light on free software, so that people may uniformly use free software 
terminology everywhere including legislation  and business.