I never thought I would find myself agreeing with Richard M Stallman
but today I do.
Free Software and Open Source Software are not the same.
At first glance they might appear to be but on closer inspection there are some subtle and important differences. Before you start debating the merits of a software licence etc it's important to use the correct terminology.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is "a nonprofit with the mission of advocating and educating on behalf of computer users around the world."
Whilst the Open Source Initiative (OSI) "is a non-profit corporation formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open-source community."
Do you see the difference?
The FSF is a political movement campaigning "for free software adoption and against proprietary software" by "fighting for essential freedoms for computer users" but the OSI only concerns itself in promoting the use of open source software.
"Please avoid using the term “open” or “open source” as a substitute for “free software”. They refer to a different position based on different values. Free software is a political movement; open source is a development model. When referring to the open source position, using its name is appropriate; but please don't label us or our work with its slogan—that leads people to think we share those views." extracted from here.
"Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement. For the free software movement, free software is an ethical imperative, because only free software respects the users' freedom. By contrast, the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to make software “better”—in a practical sense only. It says that non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the free software movement, however, non-free software is a social problem, and moving to free software is the solution." extracted from here
This can also be seen by the FSF's current list of campaigns that there is more to Free Software than just the GNU/GPL Licence.
That's why personally I am an Open Source advocate and not a Free Software advocate and why I was a founder of Open Source Matters Inc. and not a founder of Free Software Matters Inc.
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