Words to Avoid (or Use with Care) Because They Are Loaded or Confusing<br>- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

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Philosophy /<br>Essays & articles /

Terminology /

Words to Avoid (or Use with Care) Because They Are Loaded or Confusing

There are a number of words and phrases that we recommend avoiding, or<br>avoiding in certain contexts and usages. Some are ambiguous or<br>misleading; others presuppose a viewpoint that we disagree with, and<br>we hope you disagree with it too.

&ldquo;Ad-blocker&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Access&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Alternative&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Artificial Intelligence&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Assets&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;BSD-style&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Closed&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Cloud Computing&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Commercial&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Compensation&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Consume&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Consumer&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Content&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Content Management System&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Copyright Owner&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Creative Commons licensed&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Creator&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Digital Goods&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Digital Locks&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Digital Rights Management&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Ecosystem&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;FLOSS&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;For free&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;FOSS&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Freely available&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Freemium&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Free-to-play&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Freeware&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Give away software&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Google&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Hacker&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Intellectual property&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Internet of Things&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;LAMP system&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Linux system&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Market&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Modern&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Monetize&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;MP3 player&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Open&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Opt out&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;PC&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Photoshop&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Piracy&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Players (said of businesses)&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;PowerPoint&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Product&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Protection&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;RAND&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;SaaS&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Sell software&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Sharing (personal data)&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Sharing economy&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Skype&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Smart speaker&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Software Industry&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Source model&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Steward&rdquo;<br>&ldquo;Theft&rdquo;<br>&ldquo;Tool&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Trusted Computing&rdquo;<br>| &ldquo;Vendor&rdquo;

Also note Categories of Free<br>Software,<br>Why Call It The<br>Swindle?

&ldquo;Ad-blocker&rdquo;

When the purpose of some program is to block advertisements,<br>&ldquo;ad-blocker&rdquo; is a good term for it. However, the GNU<br>browser IceCat blocks advertisements that track the user as<br>consequence of broader measures to prevent surveillance by web sites.<br>This is not an &ldquo;ad-blocker,&rdquo; this is<br>surveillance protection.

&ldquo;Access&rdquo;

It is a common misunderstanding to think free software means that the<br>public has &ldquo;access&rdquo; to a program. That is not what free<br>software means.

The criterion for free software<br>is not about who has &ldquo;access&rdquo; to the program; the four<br>essential freedoms concern what a user that has a copy of the program<br>is allowed to do with it. For instance, freedom 2 says that that user<br>is free to make another copy and give or sell it to you. But no user<br>is obligated to do that for you; you do not have<br>a right to demand a copy of that program from any user.

In particular, if you write a program yourself and never offer a copy<br>to anyone else, that program is free software albeit in a trivial way,<br>because every user that has a copy has the four essential freedoms<br>(since the only such user is you).

In practice, when many users have copies of a program, someone is sure<br>to post it on the internet, giving everyone access to it. We think<br>people ought to do that, if the program is useful. But that isn't a<br>requirement of free software.

There is one specific point in which a question of having access is<br>directly pertinent to free software: the GNU GPL permits giving a<br>particular user access to download a program's source code as a<br>substitute for physically giving that user a copy of the source. This<br>applies to the special case in which the user already has a copy of<br>the program in non-source form.

Instead of with free software,<br>the public has access to the program ,<br>we say, with free software, the users have the essential<br>freedoms and with free software, the users have control<br>of what the program does for them .

&ldquo;Alternative&rdquo;

We don't describe free software in general as...