• waldyrious@lemm.ee
    64·
    1 year ago

    IMO both of these ended up being poor names.

    “Open source” can be co-opted to mean any project with public source code even if it’s not open contribution (think SQLite, and many of the projects effectively run by major tech corporations).

    “Free software” falls victim to the eternal mixup with freeware, requiring the endless repetition of the “beer vs. speech” analogy.

    I personally think “Libre software” is the term that best encapsulates the intended meaning while being unambiguous and not vulnerable to misinterpretation.

    • lad@programming.dev
      4·
      1 year ago

      Every time I see this phrase it makes me wonder, if the libre software grants the user a right to redistribute itself wouldn’t that imply that it is both free as in speech and as in beer?

      I mean, it may be sold, sure, but it would work more like donation, since you also can get a copy from another user instead.

    • cloudy1999@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      1 year ago

      I don’t often hear it called libre software, but I like it. Better than open source or free software. I’m glad this kind of discussion is back again. It’s more important than ever with the increasingly clear unfolding corporate takeover of the Internet.

    • balls_expert
      1·
      1 year ago

      I mean why did you mfers use free for both freedom and free of charge that was a stupid idea from the start innit

      • the french
  • TheInsane42@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    Open Source: The source is available to inspect for security issues and can be improved upon by anybody who wants to participate. Most of the times the software development is financed by donations in cash from users or in time from developers.

    Free software: Software you get for free, usually paid for by siphoning off data, running ads (which include trackers), … sometimes open source, most of the times closed source.

    • voidskull@lemmy.ml
      21·
      1 year ago

      What you are saying is ‘Freemium’ software. Free software in our sense is free to do whatever we want, following its license, ‘Free as in Freedom.’

      • TheInsane42@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        The terminologies used are all over the place, not really helping to make a point.

        FOSS is not to clear as well, but helps.

        • baru@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          The terminologies used are all over the place

          There are pretty clear definitions for both. I noticed you got them completely wrong, but, well, that’s not due to the definitions being difficult or “all over the place”.

    • cacheson@kbin.social
      17·
      1 year ago

      Free software: Software you get for free

      Not in this sense. This kind of confusion is why we end up with awkward terms like “Free/Libre Open Source Software”.

    • buckykatEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      No, that’s free software, small f. Free Software, capital F, is software which respects your four fundamental software freedoms: to run, study, redistribute, and modify the software.

      Open Source is a capitalist trick to make the source code available without necessarily preserving those freedoms.

      • usrsbin@kbin.social
        5·
        1 year ago

        Open-source preserves these freedoms. Source-available is the term for software that doesn’t respect user freedoms, but allows to access the source code.

        • TheInsane42@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          Indeed, most open source software is available under licenses like GPL, which enforces the preservation of those freedoms.

        • buckykat
          1·
          1 year ago

          Open Source and source-available mean the same thing, a different thing than Free Software.

      • Bady@lemmy.ml
        5·
        1 year ago

        The question is why the term “Open Source” was coined when “Free Software” was already there. You can refer https://opensource.org/history for the answer.

        The conferees believed the pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape to release their code illustrated a valuable way to engage with potential software users and developers, and convince them to create and improve source code by participating in an engaged community. The conferees also believed that it would be useful to have a single label that identified this approach and distinguished it from the philosophically- and politically-focused label “free software.” Brainstorming for this new label eventually converged on the term “open source”, originally suggested by Christine Peterson.

        In short, Open Source is more about business than user’s freedom. They didn’t want the philosophical and political baggage that comes with the term Free Software but at the same time want all practical benefits that comes with it.

        Apart from this, people also confuse Free Software as “copyleft” licensed software and Open Source as software with “permissive” license which aren’t true. Almost all Open Source software are also Free Software, there are only a few exceptions.

        Similar to the political differnece between the terms Free Software vs Open Source, I also see a political issue in using the term “permissive license” instead of “non-protective license”. Non-protective licenses don’t protect what “protective” (copyleft) licenses protect, user freedom.

        As an ending note, I want to emphasise that I don’t encourage splitting the communities in the name of political and philosophical differences. While I believe it’s good to understand the hidden meanings and motivations behind using different terms, it’s more important to work together for the common good. Whether you prefer Open Source over Free Software or Permissive over Non-protective, if you value people and freedom over profit, we should stand together.

      • buckykat
        1·
        1 year ago

        It presents the appearance of freedom by making the source code available while allowing freedom-violating things like tivoization and DRM