On Oct 21, 2010, at 09:47, Per Andersson wrote:
>>> What is described above is *not* open source in any way, it is lock-in.
>>
>> I disagree - it is "Open Source", at least in some ways. It isn't "Free Software" and the difference between the two is huge. Free Software preserves the Freedoms of the user so they're not blackmailed for license money.
>
> How is it Open Source?
Daniel Stenberg wrote:
>> I strongly disagree. Free Software and Open Source are technically the same thing. To be open source you must comply to the ten rules, >> to be free software you must comply to the 4 freedoms. That's also why most open source licenses are also free software
>> licenses and vice versa.
You're all right of course, Microsoft is not Open Source. And maybe technically Free Software and Open Source are the same thing, but I don't think they are. Open Source, and indeed the BSD license, grants a sort of anarchy while the GPL tries to ensure everyone the same freedoms with the additional responsibility of following the license. "Open" in practice can mean many things, and Microsoft has written and contributed GPL code. Microsoft will give you software through the MSDN program for example, and you can see the source code - it is open. But you won't be able to change it, build on it, improve it, etc. So Microsoft would never be considered a Free Software company because it would never align itself with a purely GPL (and open source) licensing scheme. And it would never abide by Debian's social contract.
This is what makes Free Software more significant than Open Source - it enables a way of working, a culture (which some call political), and a set of socially accepted norms of behavior with regard to software and community. You can be open without adopting the free software culture and technically the results may be the same, but you'll end up not contributing back into the ecosystem the same way. What is "open" can later be closed, or embedded and essentially stolen, the BSD license allows this. The GPL forbids this. That, to me, is a huge difference.
Jeremiah
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Received on 2010-10-21