The Hidden Cost of ‘Free Software’ and why you shouldn’t use it

Michael:
Let’s talk about free software and I don’t mean free software I mean free software is it clear now no yeah that’s the problem hi I’m Michael Tunnell and as a professional marketer I think we need to ditch the term free software instead we should use Libra software or Libre software because calling it free software is just not going to work and we’ve had plenty of time to know that it’s not going to work so what is free soft Ware well this term has two meanings the meaning that 97% of the people on this planet know and the meaning that the free software movement have promoted for many decades for those that don’t know the term free software is about having software Freedom so that you have the freedom to use and modify and distribute this software and all that sort of stuff so it’s more about the freedom of the sof well not the software’s freedom it’s more the your freedom to use the software as you please so that’s what the term is meant to be but that’s not the meaning that most people have for this term so what’s the problem well free as in Freedom software can be commercial and cost money whereas proprietary software can be free as in no cost this means that free software as a term comes with confusion assumptions and a need for explanation you know as sales and marketing professionals we use a rule about complexity of language basically if you have messaging to explain something and you have to use additional words to explain that explanation then you need to reword the original explanation because it’s not doing its job free software requires additional explanation for people to know what you mean when you say it some people do it quickly as in free as in Freedom not free as in beer uh but that’s not very clear either and in fact a lot of the time the people who know it to mean Freedom also use the term to mean not costing anything when they are talking about an app or something with someone so even the people who know what it means might use it for the other meaning too the worst part of the term though is that people who don’t know what it means will assume they do because it competes with a term that 97% of the population already has a meaning for also freear actually predates the term free software not by much but it still does and freeware is what most people think it means as in It software that doesn’t cost any money so what are the options instead of using free software the first option is software Freedom this is better but it’s still kind of confusing now some people will wonder maybe it’s about the the users freedom but it also like but what kind of Freedom would software need what do you what does that mean so there’s still going to be some confusion there but it is better because at least the people who don’t understand it won’t have an assumption that they do understand it and that like we have now with free software the next one is of course open source you’ve probably heard this term I’ve said it many times but I don’t think it’s the best one it’s better by a lot but it’s also esoteric and easily manipulated for example there’s other things that make it seem like it’s open source but it’s not like Source available or open core or many other terms that are used and some use the term not really even knowing what its meaning is and accidentally say that they’re open source when they’re not and that’s a problem of the term being so esoteric and you have no really no way to know what it means without looking it up there’s no and also even if you do look it up unless you find the right documentation you know there’s misinformation about what it is meaning to like the oci definition or other people’s definition of Open Source and all that sort of thing there’s a bit of a mess there too the next one is Libre software you’ve probably heard of Libra software before it’s not something I’ve invented or anything there is still a bit of explanation needed for it but a dictionary can explain it at least to the most part and also just you know a quick search because it’s very hard to manipulate that term open source can be manipulated because the term doesn’t really mean anything on its own in regular language whereas Libra software does mean something because Libra is or Libre is a term that means Liberty and if you look it up you’re instantly going to go oh Liberty I don’t really know exactly what you mean by this but I understand that it’s not a manipulatable thing and it’s not some kind of like confusion with free and free money and fre freedom and all that so the value of this term is that it can’t be co-opted like open source can be and actually already has as I talked about many times with the source available and all that sort of stuff it isn’t automatically confusing making people assume it’s something that it isn’t and if they know what Libre means then you don’t even really have to look it up but if they don’t they can look it up and easily find it because it’s really hard to manipulate it now I know some of you out there are thinking what about the FSF do they need to change their name well yes they should but they don’t have to to if they don’t want to change the name of the FSF then don’t but stop calling the term free software and just use Libra software because it’s better also they should change it though because the foundation for software Freedom explains what they want better and you can still keep the FSF initials and the domain and all of that while also not creating a confusion because a lot of people I’ve had people literally say to me oh a a foundation for free software like because of the free software Foundation I like free software that’s cool but they mean that it doesn’t cost anything the fact that I have to explain that is another problem in my opinion the solution is Libra software it avoids confusion it’s a simple term that’s very hard to manipulate and the only real debate about it is how to say it the English way is the is to saying Libra and the Spanish way is Libre and just a quick side note Libra office is pronounced Libra not Libre I didn’t know that either and I didn’t even know there was a different different pronunciation until I looked up how to say Libra office out of curiosity and that is how you say it Libra office so there’s going to be a debate about that I guess but other than that and I feel like that’s a a debate that doesn’t matter and it it still accomplishes what it needs to accomplish so I I welcome that debate now when it comes to to Libra Libre software there’s a lot of great projects and apps but there’s also some that are becoming proprietary sometimes because they feel like they’re being taken advantage of and you can check out this video right here to find out more about what’s going on and also I shared an idea in there that I think will help those projects or any others that are considering using the same ill-advised path check it out