On 2015-09-30 at 13:23, Doug wrote: > On 09/30/2015 07:37 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote: > > /snip/ > >> The letter of the law my dear Shylock, the letter. >> >> But in spirit, Open Source and Free Software couldn't be more >> different. The one is about a more efficient software production >> model, the other about the user's rights. >> >> But such "spirit" things are difficult to grasp at times :-) >> >> In practice, and technically, most Open Source software is Free, >> and all Free Software is Open Source. But watch those folks in a >> corporate environment awkwardly avoiding the F word -- or read >> Bruce Perens, one of those who coined Open Source writing that in >> hindsight it may have been a mistake to realize that the people >> behind those flavors are quite different. > > This whole (OT) discussion perverts the meaning of the word "free."* > In common usage, the word "free" means you do not have to pay money > for it. That's one of several meanings, but yes, it's probably the most common default one. > Therefore, the example given above is incorrect: all free software is > NOT open source: Firefox and Thunderbird are prime examples of free > software which is not open source that probably most users of Linux > are using today. Eh? The full source of Firefox and Thunderbird is available; I've built both from source before (in one case quite recently), and have written patches which have gone upstream for at least one (and I think both). How do you conclude that Firefox and Thunderbird are not open source? > They[re _free_ becasue you didn't have to pay for it. simple as > that. He didn't say that all free software is open source, nor even that all free software is Open Source. He said that all Free Software is Open Source. At least for the former of those two terms, the capitalization indicates that a specific term is being used, with a more specific meaning than might be understood from the generic meanings of the words involved. In this case, the more-specific meaning is probably the one given by the Free Software Foundation in its "Free Software Definition": https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html Generally, when someone goes out of their way to type "Free Software" with that capitalization (in normal text, not as part of e.g. a page title or the like), they may be presumed to be referring to that definition. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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