Re: [ox-en] Free Software -> Libreware or Liberation Software
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 11:31:51 +0100
Hi Claude, Raju, others!
1 hours ago I Claude Harper wrote:
Of course, this whole semantic debate appears a tad over-the-board
IMHO.
well bare in mind, our (or at least my) goal is to gain understanding, not
dictate terminology. By discussing which word best describes something, you
better understand what it is you are trying to describe and how others
perceive it. You can call it FujiBaquat for all I care, but are we talking
about the same thing? And what the heck is it?
I agree wholeheartedly. On the German list it's already kind of a
tradition to try to clarify the meaning of a word, to clarify a
notion, find correct words for a notion and so on. And though it's
sometimes pretty difficult and we not always can agree on a single
understanding I find it never boring because IMHO we all learn *a lot*
from this type of clarification and in the end at least we have the
glimpse of an idea what others are talking about.
Here on the international part of the project to me this seems both
even more clarifying and even more enlightening. We all come from our
own culture and thus we definitely have different backgrounds on
nearly every notion. Because I am always interested - and I think I do
speak for the whole project here - in gathering together the best of
all thinking traditions, I find it a big advantage to now have the
possibility to gather the best of all cultures :-) .
And one more note regarding cultures: Some years ago I have been in an
international mailing list project for quite a long time. I learnt
there *are* different cultures and the fact we're using the same words
when writing English clutters that fact. I guess to grasp this is even
more difficult for the native English speakers than for others because
others are already moving in a foreign language. Particularly from my
experience what is considered rude differs widely between cultures. So
especially to the British and US people: What sounds rude in English
often does not sound this way in German. (And from very few
impressions: What sounds rude to a German doesn't sound rude to a
Russian...)
2 hours ago Raju Mathur wrote:
Building intellectual
castles in the air is an interesting pastime, no doubt, but let's get
back to earth once in a while and instead of defining and discussing
ideals see how to sell them to the putative man on the street.
Well, I won't ever sell them ;-) .
But for sure Raju has a point here. Clearly after we believe we
understand what we're talking about our thoughts should spread out.
However, to me this seems more and more two different endeavors. For
instance some of my texts are written in a pretty simple language - in
particular "Nehmen statt Kaufen" - and some of my texts are written in
a more complicated language with tons of footnotes. This is a result
of being directed to different audiences.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
PS: I did it - I caught up with both lists :-) .
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