Stefan Umit Uygur wrote:
Personally, knowing and being involved closely to the development/history
of both Free and Open Source Software during the past 20yrs I think there
is no point of trying to compare the 2 entities or distinguish one from
another.
There isn't just one point, there are multiple points to making this
distinction. I find the distinction very helpful to understand why certain
organizations make the choices they do.
I rather see them one depending on another, meaning without Free
Software I doubt that the Open Source Software would have existed but
not vice versa and that clears almost everything.
That is self-contradictory but begins to get into why the open source
development methodology and philosophy exists. In short, open source is (as
Stallman has pointed out) a right-wing reactionary counter to the free
software movement. The free software social movement existed for over a
decade before open source came along. Open source enthusiasts continue to
try to talk about the practical benefits of free software to business
without talking about the software freedom or the ethical underpinnings of
the social movement.
Also making a comparison in terms of value I don't see it as a correct
approach, again referring to the relationship between the 2 that I have
just mentioned above. I'd mostly describe Free Software as a theorem
and the Open Source is the module that puts into application that
theorem.
I don't understand what this means.
I know that the term Open Source is more popular these days simply
because the term Free Software gets people into a confusion.
Open source gets more popular press because the computing-related media is
overwhelmingly corporate and desires gratis labor. Open source philosophy
never pushes any listener to think ethically or consider the ramifications
of something beyond a narrowminded developmental philosophy. In fact, as
has been known for years, open source advocates dispense with their
developmental philosophy if it gets in the way of placating a proprietary
software business. This is why
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html has a
section called "Different Values Can Lead to Similar Conclusions…but Not
Always" which includes this text:
[...] people from the free software movement and the open source camp
often work together on practical projects such as software development.
It is remarkable that such different philosophical views can so often
motivate different people to participate in the same projects.
Nonetheless, there are situations where these fundamentally different
views lead to very different actions.
The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and
redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But
this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not
necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program that is
powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users'
freedom. Free software activists and open source enthusiasts will react
very differently to that.
A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the
ideals of free software, will say, “I am surprised you were able to
make the program work so well without using our development model, but
you did. How can I get a copy?” This attitude will reward schemes that
take away our freedom, leading to its loss.
The free software activist will say, “Your program is very attractive,
but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. I will get my
work done some other way, and support a project to develop a free
replacement.” If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and
defend it.
I encourage reading the GNU Project essays on this. They're far better
written and draw important distinctions one needs to reach reasonable
conclusions.
Stefan Umit Uygur continues:
Not everyone is keen to study the history or dig into the terminology or
the meaning of something like the term Free Software. As Italian, it is
easier in my language for example because in Italian the 2 terms are
completely separate, Freedom and Free vs Libero and Gratis. That
helps/helped a lot in my case but as Matthias mentioned in his article
it is not the same in many other languages and in particular in
English.
I think this trouble is vastly overstated. It doesn't take much time in
English to explain the difference in definitions of the word "free".
Besides, https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html gets
into how people misunderstand the phrase "open source". In reality, it's
unreasonable (but entirely business-friendly) to think that a handful of
words will adequately convey any idea. Believing this is so is buying into
the trap of concision (as explained in "Manufacturing Consent", Chomsky &
Herman's famous book and the 1992 documentary based on that book.
Either way, I find myself very comfortable to explain that the 2 are
the exact same thing with addition of the reliance (or the existence
should I say again) from one to another and I have no issues in using
either of the terms.
Then you are likely teaching others something oversimplified and untrue. No
wonder you find it easy to do: as the old saying goes[1], "A lie travels
around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes.".
- the free software movement started over a decade before open source.
- the free software movement is a social movement, open source is a
developmental methodology.
- software freedom activists don't give into software non-freedom, open
source advocates sometimes do and this alone shows how the two philosophies
have radically different outcomes (thus are clearly not "the exact same
thing").
- free software doesn't give business primacy but treat business users as
equals, whereas open source philosophy was designed to speak to a business
audience and frequently gives into whatever business representatives say
they want. I think this is where the perverse attention to popularity comes
from as well.
Instead of telling people what you've been telling them, I recommend
pointing to the essays I've pointed to here. Stallman's book "Free as in
Freedom" is also instructive (and also contains these essays). You can
download a copy gratis, share it with anyone, or buy a printed copy from
the FSF.
[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/
_______________________________________________
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
