Re: [libreplanet-discuss] ethical edtech edit-a-thon

[Aaron Wolf]

On 2019-03-13 7:05 a.m., overthefalls@opengroupware.ch wrote:
> 
> I follow what you're saying about open/open source and not demonizing
> it, but would you mind clarifying the part about open source not really
> being different? What is it in near unity with?
> 

The set of licenses that the OSI approves as "Open Source" and that
FSF/GNU approves as "Free software" is near unity. Hence, the set of all
software in the world that is "Open Source" is near unity with the set
of software that is "Free/libre".

The distinctions are almost not worth mentioning. The Watcom license
*requires* the publishing of changes, even changes for only private use
— and the OSI approved it while FSF did not. The FSF has approved a
couple licenses the OSI felt were just not legally clear enough but no
other objections… almost no software in existence uses any of the
disputed licenses.

Now, there's DEFINITELY philosophical distinctions. People often get
confused because of how strongly Richard Stallman pushes against "Open
Source", but if you look carefully, he always says "call it Free/libre,
don't call it Open Source" and similar. He cares what we call it, but he
doesn't want people to think that "it" is a different thing per se.

Besides political/philosophical issues, the practical matter is that
lots of people in the "Open Source" perspective make FLO software
specifically for use in *proprietary* end products while the
"free/libre" perspective opposes the creation of proprietary software.
But they still acknowledge that the "Open Source" *part* of the
proprietary development is unambiguously "free/libre" software.