TL;DR: Testing search terms related to "free software" in duckduckgo"
This is a really interesting experiment. I tried searching several variations on "free software" with duckduckgo; here are some summaries of the first-page results, followed by some of my thoughts: "free software" returned results recommending software that we would call "gratis", like Photoshop Express, right next to software we would call "free", like the GNU image manipulation program. Most of the other results are focused on software that can be downloaded without paying, rather than software that respects the user's freedom. A noteable exception on the first page is sourceforge, but their result says "free open source software". "freedom software" returns a few software products with "freedom" in their name, but near the bottom of the first page is a link to the Software Freedom Law Center's home page. "software freedom" returns results including the GNU project, the Software Freedom Conservancy, the Software Freedom School, and the Software Freedom Law Center. "open source" returns what you'd expect: sourceforge.com, opensource.org, and several blog posts telling what open source software is (including one from IBM) or listing the top N open source programs. "libre software", again, returns software with "libre" in the name (libreoffice, libreCAD), and the Spanish version of gnu.org. Duckduckgo also proposes the wikipedia page for "free software" beside the search results. I think that Leah is correct that "free software" is usually interpreted as "gratis". I, for one, spent years searching "free software" or "free version of [program]" before I ever learned about the free software movement. Indeed, I only found out about our movement through the open source movement's marketing! On the other hand, "free software", to those in the know, means something very specific; it's not worth abandoning almost four decades of work because of an unfortunate ambiguity. Indeed, "freedom" has become something of a shibboleth for me: if the program isn't described as "free", I'll avoid using it. Thanks for reading, Preston _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss