Anyone looking for a summary of the free software movement's concerns needs only to look at Richard M. Stallman's essay "Some Confusing or Loaded Words and Phrases that are Worth Avoiding." Behind the modest title, the essay lists all the classic free software concerns, ranging from insisting on the term "GNU/Linux" for the operating system usually called Linux to efforts to emphasize the dangers of so-called Digital Rights Management and Trusted Computing.

Even more importantly, though the essay never refers to the term, what unites most of its list is a concern with framing -- the effort to define the terms of a debate to favor one side over the other. As much as Stallman's analysis of each term, this underlying concern makes the essay an education in the structure of the debates to which he refers.

Those hostile to the free software movement -- which includes many who call themselves open source supporters -- might be tempted to dismiss Stallman's essay as a piece of political correctness left over from the Nineties.

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