[ox-en] Free time (was: Re: Free administration)
- From: "B. Fallenstein" <b.fallenstein gmx.de>
- Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 18:27:18 +0100
Hi Stefan & others!
Stefan Merten wrote:
How do you define an "open" project? Does your definition work with
requiring people to work on such a project? I'm asking this because currently
most people that are involved in free software projects are there because
they *wanted* to participate, not because they were forced. Even people
that get paid to write free software (sadly, there are less and less of
them nowadays) usually first started to write the free software, and then
got on somebody's payroll (e.g., when that somebody wanted to ever-so-slightly
push development towards a certain direction).
IMHO Nadev is perfectly right here. As I tried to point out in the
interview, the core idea in Free Software is not the openness in
itself but the freedom. An open project consisting of people somehow
forced to work in that project has only the advantage of being
non-secret - which in a democratic society should be a fundamental
feature anyway.
Reading this, I was wondering how to put this important aspect of free
software freedom and self-unfolding in a short phrase and came up with:
"Free as in free speech, but also free as in free time," suggesting that
when self-unfolding, you (try to) spend your time in the way you spend
your "free time:" doing what you enjoy doing, instead of what shows on
your payroll.
Just a little thought & I'm not sure how far it can be carried, but I do
like the sound of it. (And I do think in the context of our discussion,
it makes sense to include self-unfolding in the meaning of "free," even
though of course free software can be free software without being
produced by self-unfolding.)
Cheers,
- Benja
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