Re:It's not the open source community (Score 2, Insightful)

The FSF and everyone representing free software know that free(as in freedom) software is not the same as free(as in beer) but the two seem to go hand in hand and whenever someone decides to make it so that libre software is not without cost it suddenly becomes about how they are closing their software. That is not it at all and nowhere in the GPL does it say that the software need to be distributed without cost.

GNU protects the freedoms of the software and as RMS has said before you can sell that software as long as the person who gets the software gets the four freedoms. It IS the open source community who don't seem to get the definition of FREE software as apposed to FREE (libre) software and simply see them as tied together.

I happen to agree strongly with libre software ideals and I think that it only becomes a problem when companies take away the freedoms of the users. We see this on the other financial end where companies or developers release freeware. There is a definite difference and people need to be made aware of it so that arguments about whether they are closing their software (taking away the freedoms of the users of that software) or simply charging for it don't happen.