I mean, the whole point of “Open Source” was to escape the baggage of the social/political/economic philosophies and ideologies of “Free Software”. So anyone that says “Open Source” is more than licenses is really just helping to propagate the redefinition attempted by the OSI. The term has existed before the OSI and its definition is pretty obvious. The source is open. That’s pretty much it.
I do understand that “Open Source” is a nicer and more mainstream term than “Free Software”, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. I think the use of that term as “source is open” + “a bit of free software stuff” is disingenious.
Very nice article with just few things to point out:
Free and Open Source community
There was never one community. Some people care only about contributing to some project to improve their resume. Some care about freedom for the end users. Some see Free Software as a way to improve society.
If Facebook would release all the code tomorrow as Free and Open Source software our community would be super happy.
A lot of people are aware of the problematic “free-as-in-facebook” model. Releasing the software achieves little.
Copyleft licenses has always been a mean to an end rather the end itself. Goals such security, absence of lock-in, data “sovereignty”, knowledge sharing and even human rights have been in scope since the beginning.
Needless to say, such goals might be quite scary to some entities. Someone might push forward the idea of open source as a mere development methodology.
I mean, the whole point of “Open Source” was to escape the baggage of the social/political/economic philosophies and ideologies of “Free Software”. So anyone that says “Open Source” is more than licenses is really just helping to propagate the redefinition attempted by the OSI. The term has existed before the OSI and its definition is pretty obvious. The source is open. That’s pretty much it.
I do understand that “Open Source” is a nicer and more mainstream term than “Free Software”, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. I think the use of that term as “source is open” + “a bit of free software stuff” is disingenious.
Free Software is more than licenses.
Very nice article with just few things to point out:
There was never one community. Some people care only about contributing to some project to improve their resume. Some care about freedom for the end users. Some see Free Software as a way to improve society.
A lot of people are aware of the problematic “free-as-in-facebook” model. Releasing the software achieves little.
Copyleft licenses has always been a mean to an end rather the end itself. Goals such security, absence of lock-in, data “sovereignty”, knowledge sharing and even human rights have been in scope since the beginning.
Needless to say, such goals might be quite scary to some entities. Someone might push forward the idea of open source as a mere development methodology.