For the uninitiated, FUD stands for ?Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.? It is a term popular within the free software community, used to describe the use of lies and deceptive rhetoric, aimed chiefly at free software projects. It is an accurate term. In brief, the goal of FUD is to make money when the free software competition cannot be defeated fairly in the marketplace. This can be done by scaring consumers through wild propaganda, or more recently, confusing courts through more subtle arguments. —Aaron Krowne —The FUD-based Encyclopedia: Dismantling fear, uncertainty, and doubt, aimed at Wikipedia and other free knowledge resources (Free Software Magazine)
Krowne is responding to Robert McHenry’s critique of Wikipedia: The Faith-Based Enclyopedia. While Krowne’s open-source lenses are rose-colored, he makes the very good point that Wikipedia’s editing process is transparent, while the process of deciding what gets into a traditional print encyclopedia and what is left out is completely inaccessible to the end user. Via KairosNews (which features a responsible rebuttal by John Walter).