On Fri, 15 Mar 2019 20:12:24 -0700 Aaron wrote: > I'm with you here. I still today see lots of people using "Open > Source" with NO care for the free/libre values. I often have > conversations where
i think the real essence of these confusions is that people use the terms "open-source" and "free-software" to refer to something that neither of those terms convey very well; but most of the time they are referring to exactly the same thing and indicating mostly the same values of it, but from a different perspective the biggest problem is that the terms "open-source" and "free-software" are both woefully inadequate for actually conveying their respective concepts, as they are generally intended - unlike "free" as in "freedom", the literal words "open" and "source" do not even attempt to describe the concept that is actually intended by most people who use it strictly speaking, all that the words "open" and "source" imply, is that you can read the code, because it is "not hidden" - much like any repo on github that does not have a license - you can read the files, but you can not copy them, or modify them, or redistribute them, or make use them in any way - by that definition, no one would be cheer-leading the merits of open-source, unless that definition were somehow profitable to them as a marketing buzz-word - so, "open-source" is a fairly vacuous term in of itself, and it's only true merits are precisely the same as what the FSF calls more clearly: "software freedom"; and only in the specific cases where it actually does provide that (when the "open" source code is accompanied by a free license) from my experience, the properties of "open-source" that most people who actually use the term actually like about it, are actually the four freedoms - noted above, software can be open-source without providing any such freedoms; so it is an unfortunately misleading label to give software that does provide user freedom - it is extremely unlikely however, that any software that does not provide the four freedoms will be referred to in a normal conversation by term "open-source" - most people who use that term are almost always referring to software that provides all four freedoms, sans the ethical overtones - thats not because they do not appreciate "software freedom" - they just dont emphasize ethics as the primary concern i think the main reason why some prefer to use "open-source", is because they take "open" in the sense of "open-minded"; so it makes them appear more hip and modern, rather than merely altruistic or generous, as "freedom" more aptly implies - the problem with that interpretation, of course, is that it could only be meaningfully applied to the people on the dev team, not to the source code; which is only inert information after-all - the source code is "open" merely in the sense of "disclosed", like the ingredients list on a can of soup; which are not adequate for making your own soup - that is the point missing in the term "open-source"; but again i see most people using it, not in that sense at all, but as a synonym for everything "software freedom" implies, sans the ethical imperative _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss