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I don't know why but it pissed me off so much that they called gimp "freeware"
(www.tomshardware.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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I think y'all who are upset over the use of "freeware" are out of touch with how language is used in non-expert settings. Like, I'm definitely more tech-savvy than most people and I still didn't know about "FOSS" as a term until seeing it on Lemmy and looking it up. This just means "free software" to me and doesn't imply anything negative.
It even says, "the premier free and open source image editing software for multiple platforms" right in the first paragraph, so what's the issue? Do you think the headline will mislead someone into thinking that GIMP is proprietary?
I don't think the issue is that it implies something negative, it's that it does a poor job of conveying the nature of open-source, ie free as in free speech, not free as in free beer.
It reminds me of how inside people tried to claw back the meaning of the word "hacker" from general use as a negative. Sorry but that ship sailed a long time ago.