[latexr]

That type of pedantry is why people make fun of the free software movement. And if programmers don’t take it seriously, good luck convincing anyone else. Pick your battles.

“Product” doesn’t mean closed-source or paid, it’s simply the result of an action or process. The product of your cooking at home is a meal that feeds you. The product of your coding effort is a binary, a script, a set of files, or something else that satisfies a need. It doesn’t have to be a business need. A product that doesn’t sell or isn’t made to be sold is still a product.

[feikname]

Yet no one calls their homemade food a product and offer to others for free calling it that. The semantic prominence of a commercial product would prevail as the first thing that comes to mind for anyone because that's also one of the meanings of the word product.

It's simply confusing to call something that can and is commonly monetized as a (commercial) product - that is, software - and not expect others to believe its something paid.

e.g. "Apache is a product for serving web pages" would surely be read by majority of people not familiar with Apache as if it's paid.

> That type of pedantry is why people make fun of the free software movement.

No. They make fun because people use terms like open-source to mean more than just a source that is open.

Or free and open-source whereas free, like product can also have more than one meaning. And they expect people unfamiliar to understand it means free as in liberty not as in price.

These are confusing, just like using the word product for unpaid software done that is done in spare time and has no commercial support whatsover.

If I could decide, the movement would have been called something like "source code free to see and to modify (and redistribute, if applicable)". Lengthy, yes, but also pretty clear.

[OrderlyTiamat]

> > That type of pedantry is why people make fun of the free software movement.

> "source code free to see and to modify (and redistribute, if applicable)"

You have to see the humor in putting both of these in the same comment, right? That's a prime example of what they're talking about!

[feikname]

As I said, it's not the pedantry that gets the free software movement to be made fun of, its the overloading of terms and then having to overly explain them.

Creative Commons is very clear in its license and it - rightfully - doesn't get as much complaint as open-source evangelists about its lingo.

Having to say "but technically a product is anything that is produced" to go against a expected reading and then complain about pedantry in the same comment is way more humorous as it's a prime example of what they're talking about.

[latexr]

> Yet no one calls their homemade food a product

Just like no one calls food at a restaurant a product, despite it being paid. But it is a product. You’re nitpicking the example to explain a concept instead of the argument.

> No. They make fun because people use terms like open-source to mean more than just a source that is open.

That is nonsensical. It’s like saying people make fun of Lord of the Rings fans because of how they pronounce Balrog. You need to be inside the community to understand the nuance of it in the first place.

While you believe people make fun of the movement for something so subtle, you won’t be able to change their mind.

> Lengthy, yes, but also pretty clear.

Also pretty dead in the water. No one would have called it that, ever. With such a name you’d either have doomed the movement before it started or everyone would have called it something else instead.