• TheGalacticVoid@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    When most people say “free software”, they’re talking about software that’s free as in freedom. Using it otherwise just causes unnecessary confusion.

    If by “most people” you mean the general population, you are absolutely wrong. Hell, even software devs (at least in the US) would fight with you unless they themselves are interested in FOSS.

    When the average Joe pays nothing for an item that they want, regardless of whether that item can be modified, they will say that the item is free. To your average Joe, software is yet another item.

    • magic_smoke
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      4 months ago

      Yeah that’s why I threw “especially those in industry”.

      Either way if you’re not writing software then yeah sorry your input matters less on the language we use to describe it.

      I’m not gonna walk over to a doctors office and start arguing that the language they use is wrong because it doesn’t line up with what I know as a layperson.