There’s a long standing debate about terms like FOSS and FLOSS and whether they are conductive to creating a shared community. I’m in the anti-FOSS camp in that I feel that it’s not responsible (for me at least) to clump both of these groups together. People go into this ‘space’ (for a lack of a better word) for different reasons and have different goals (and frankly, different attitudes).

I’m not going to negate anyone’s desire to use words like FLOSS or FOSS, but I want people who do use these words to understand that it is not a monolith of shared beliefs. There are people who have been using Linux for decades and there’s people like me who have only started using Linux since the pandemic (much less learn the theory and history of Free software). It’s much less a community/movement and more of a space/collective of people of all different backgrounds who come together to share and discuss ideas. Nor do I want people to use these terms to recontextualize history and misrepresent the facts (I will hold you accountable if you call RMS the “Father of Open Source”, essentially erasing the actual open source folks who started the movement).

Honestly, there’s no academic field/focus on the history of free software as this field is still so new and rapidly changing which is part of the reason why people argue over things like GNU/Linux and FOSS, it’s an exercise in creating a history.

TL;DR “FOSS/FLOSS” makes me uncomfortable because I don’t want to speak over anyone or claim to speak for a community when really people are more diverse than that. My mindset has always been to stay true to my own beliefs which is how I moderate the ‘libre’ comm here on hexbear.