[OSGeoLive] The Promise of OSGeoLive Distro in 2022

[Brian M Hamlin]

Hi All - good day to you in these difficult times

Many people are looking forward to the *FOSS4G 2022 *in Firenze, Italia. 
This event is in the hearts and minds of many, with excellent tech and 
networking.  I am reading up on project status with an editor hat on my 
head for the new 15th edition of *OSGeoLive* disk.

I see on the *GeoNode* web site this page, it says:

"/It is composed entirely of free software, allowing it to be freely 
distributed, duplicated and passed around./"

https://docs.geonode.org/en/master/start/quick/index.html#osgeo-live-cd

   In my opinion as a software developer and editor at OSGeoLive, I 
think this way of describing OSGeoLive causes trouble.. "Free" in 
English means two different things..  OSGeo dot org and others face a 
long-term public relations challenge among many professional software 
developers and their executive leadership.. these words are not helping 
in my opinion.

   I would encourage geonode and others to describe the Legal Freedom or 
*Libre* side .. not "free" like a cheap pen with a logo available at 
your hotel room.  It is "free" like the promise of *Open Source 
Software*, you can try software, examine the source code, make changes 
to that source code to learn or extend it, and you can develop from the 
base of the software as you choose, according to the license of the 
software stack.

   I ask that GeoNode and other projects please consider how you 
describe OSGeoLive in public, and I encourage you to value and promote 
software freedoms in your words. Specifically avoid the "free" like a 
marketing throw-away item you get at a convention. The hours and years 
of effort, the intelligence and the standards embodied in these software 
stacks, deserve respect, not association with no-value cheap things.

   thank you for your amazing and powerful efforts, and I look forward 
to FOSS4G 2022 with others

   best regards from Berkeley, California   --Brian M Hamlin    / 
MAPLABS  /  OSGeoLive PSC

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