According to the front page FAQ for guests:
WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!
Am I the only one that finds this offensive? Am I the only GNU supporter in this forum? Even if you don't support GNU, Linux only "costs nothing" if your time is worthless.

Free (liberated) Software has nothing to do with price or cost.

Am I wrong? What's going on around here?



Sepero

Linux is free as in price and freedom although you can pay for it if you wish. That makes that statement a valid one, so I fail to see whats offensive about it. I doubt that you are the only GNU supporter on this site. I think the majority of people on this forum are GNU supporters, otherwise they wouldn't be using an OS that heavily relies on many GNU tools.

I don´t understand. Linux is free and so is membership.
The Q. is regarding monetary cost. and Linux is usually provided for no monetary cost. I see no problem with that FAQ.

The confusion between free ¨free of charge¨ and Free ¨freedom¨ is kind of irritating sometimes.

It's basically saying "The true spirit of Linux is free as in beer".

It would never have occurred to me that this would be offensive.

In terms of resources (time, money, etc.) nothing is free. Perhaps one way to view the freedom of OSS, GNU, Linux, etc. is that you are given personal freedom as to how to spend your resources. After some false starts, MY personal choice is to never pay for the SW directly if I don't have to. My payback is with my time--trying to help people in fora such as LQ. (And I do contribute $ here.)

So then, in the spirit of GNU and Free Software, go become a Contributing Member to pay for your membership and help support this site..

http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/member.html

hahha
"Free as in Free Speech not as in Free Lunch or Beer"

No brother u r not the only one. I am too(and there are millions like us). I just have good feelings and i really appreciate whatever Stallman has done (with others who voluntered tooo). Open Source is also good but i suppoirt GNU because they did all when needed and when it came time for Business, Open Source took the advantake.

Sorry if i hurt anyone(but i didnt mean i dont like Open Source). I support both and have regrets that i use MICROSOFT os and software (also now i have to use it to do my project )

So, you're asking Jeremy to change the forums from LinuxQuestions to GnuLinuxQuestions?

Having a bad day are we? You have been a member here for over 2 years and a member at JL for over 3 years and you gripe about this?
Would this sound better to you?
Are we happy now?

At first, I thought this question sucks. I thought about it, and waited for a few more replies. Then it occurred to me that it is never bad to discuss "free" gratis/libre issues.

Over the last few weeks, we have had some reminders of how prevalent this kind of question is in the Free Software and Open Source Software culture right now. Including:

• GPLv3 fallout
• The Debian - Firefox trademark dispute
• Java being released into Open Source
• Microsoft and Novel (up to no good, I fear)
• FSF backs a distribution gNewSense

As technologies like DMCA start to filter in under the radar of the "average citizen"; getting more people discussing "freedom" is important.

Personally, the question (rather the response) in the FAQ didn't bother me when I read it. It still doesn't because it would be very difficult to live in a world where we nit-pick things like this. I'd prefer to tolerate the little faux-pas, and find other ways to impress the important messages.

jer

That text is about 5 years old and admittedly not ideal, but do you really find it offensive?

--jeremy

I different take- I remember when I first came to the forum, oh, all those years ago when I really had no clue about linux, or FSF (etc) I saw that message, and was so impacted by the friendliness of that statement that I signed up. It was an "oh! they're friendly" thought.

LQ was my first forum, I think.

titanium_geek

The question and answer are fine as-is. It's reasonable for an LQ newbie to wonder whether LQ.org requires paid membership to participate in the forums, and the answer is No. I think most people (excepting RMS of course) would consider the "GNU/Linux" vs. "Linux" debate to be too obscure and esoteric to really matter.

Just my 2 cents

I really think it's a non-issue.