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If Microsoft wanted an OSI-approved open source license, the shortest distance between point A and point B would be to go ahead and use the GPL. That's easier and less expensive than paying your legal team to draft an entirely new license.

You should have told this to the developers of Apache, Python, Perl*, and PHP about this revelation! After all, none of them use the GPL, but all of them have their own OSI-approved licenses...

Like it or not, the GPL is not a one-size-fits-all license.

* Perl is dual-licensed, but I included it on this list anyway, because its Artistic license is OSI-approved.

It is approved by both the OSI and, obviously, the FSF. Are you trolling?

GFDL (with those "invariant sections") also came from the FSF, is that "Free" too?

It is perfectly reasonable to not agree with how the FSF chooses to define things.

what.

It is approved by both the OSI and, obviously, the FSF. Are you trolling?

Don't forget Microsoft's strategy: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

I heard reasonable arguments about that being true for the Ms-PL but I thought the GPL (v2 and v3) were supposed to be embraceable and extensible but nearly non-extinguishable ... once the code is out there, just fork it. Care to explain to me how this plan can follow after releasing something under the GPL? I'd be shocked that no one's tried it yet if it's possible.

One thing that seems to always be left out of these discussions is that the GPL is incompatible with many sincere open-source licenses ..

Shouldn't that be the other way round ..

Although many open-source licenses have been modified to make them compatible with the GPL, that does not make compatibility with the GPL a requirement for being a good open-source license. In fact, the Open Source Initiative has a much clearer test of whether the intent of a license is truly open source: Open Source Definition.

Note that the NASA OSA meets these requirements with flying colors (which is why it is OSI-approved). The incompatibility with the GPL is not apparent until the two licenses have been very carefully pored over, probably by lawyers -- if NASA wants contributions to be the contributor's original creation, why should we hold up the GPL and tell them that they're in the same camp as closed-source software?

From the FSF ( http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html ):

The NASA Open Source Agreement, version 1.3, is not a free software license because it includes a provision requiring changes to be your "original creation". Free software development depends on combining code from third parties, and the NASA license doesn't permit this.

We urge you not to use this license. In addition, if you are a United States citizen, please write to NASA and call for the use of a truly free software license.

If someone is licensing a project under the GPL, he should be more aware that the license is so restrictive that it bars its use with other perfectly-legitimate open-source software. This is the intention of the FSF, but I believe that it is not the intention of most of those in the OSS community that use it -- at least until they get greedy and mistakenly think that an organization like NASA has deep pockets and should pay regardless of its contribution to the open-source community.

I think Zed needs to read this as he seems to have lost the spirit of open source entirely:

1. Free Redistribution
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
2. Source Code
The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.
3. Derived Works
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code
The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
7. Distribution of License
The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software
The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.
10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral
No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface.
The Open Source Definition

http://www.opensource.org/history

They brainstormed about tactics and a new label. "Open source", contributed by Chris Peterson, was the best thing they came up with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

The group of individuals at the session included Christine Peterson who suggested open source.

It wasn't Eric Raymond. He was just in favor of that term over all the others that came up. I'm pretty sure I remember himself saying that on catb.org/~esr/<somewhere>, but I can't find that right now.

Um, why not just ask the former-intern's IBM manager for permission? Or is it that IBM doesn't open-source anything?

The free software movement's goal is freedom for computer users. Some, especially corporations, advocate a different viewpoint, known as "open source," which cites only practical goals such as making software powerful and reliable, focuses on development models, and avoids discussion of ethics and freedom. These two viewpoints are different at the deepest level. For more explanation, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.

Finally I think that you are one of free as in beer .. and free as in free code guys :P

Open source was founded in 1998 as a way to stop talking about those things, to hush them up, bury them, put them out of people's sight. So they talk about practical advantages that come if you use free software.

(From Stallman's speech)

This is quite simply not true. The definition of what constitutes Open Source is right here, and I've virtually never seen Linus give an interview where he doesn't mention the GPL, or specifically why he likes it.

You can also read this, as well. People who advocate licenses other than the GPL are perhaps not as vocal as Stallman, but to claim that they are actively repressing or trying to bury anything is a lie, and a particularly malicious and injurious one.

Knowing that F# came out of Microsoft Research and that some other .NET code has been released as free software by Microsoft in the past, I was hoping that the F# compiler would be free software too. Sadly this is not the case - at least as far as the licence in fsharp.zip here is concerned; it's distributable for non-commercial use only. So while F# looks very interesting, for now it's something of a Microsoft lock-in, and I won't be adopting it because it removes the possibility of porting to Mono.

Don Syme said, and more recently confirmed, that F# will be released under MS-PL (effectively a BSDL with patent clause) for the VS2010 release - it's only "shared source" currently because it is still in beta.

Look at the Open Source Definition and compare that with the Free Software Definition. I'm using the definitions from OSI and the FSF because, for all intents and purposes, I think that they have a reasonable claim on defining the corresponding term.

There are some licenses that are OSI-certified but not Free Software Licenses (according to the FSF). These include:

* The NASA Open Source Agreement, version 1.3
* The Reciprocal Public License

I'm also a bit wary of this part of the OSD:

The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time.

So that's saying that a license could be Open Source and not allow the distribution of patched files? That seems like a bizarre restriction. Their explanation doesn't really sell me:

Rationale: Encouraging lots of improvement is a good thing, but users have a right to know who is responsible for the software they are using. Authors and maintainers have reciprocal right to know what they're being asked to support and protect their reputations.

Accordingly, an open-source license must guarantee that source be readily available, but may require that it be distributed as pristine base sources plus patches. In this way, "unofficial" changes can be made available but readily distinguished from the base source.

The problems with this is that "distribution" can mean any conveyance. So that could mean that to install a program under such a license on a system, you might be required to patch and then compile the code on the actual device. Woe betide anyone who distributes code cross-compiled for a very low power handheld device that doesn't have much in the way of dev tools or system resources. Forget about checking your patched files into a publicly-accessible repository. And if you want to have a web viewer to look at the code, you better be using client-side javascript to do the patching or face the prospect of being in violation of "distribution" laws when you send a pre-patched filed across the Intertubes from your server to the user's browser.

It makes perfect sense to say "If you change this, you can't use our official name for it." I mean, if you bought a can of vegetarian beans and mixed in beef fat, you couldn't just turn around and sell it with the original packaging as you'd be misrepresenting the product. Similarly, if you take the MediaWiki codebase and mix in a few lines of your own code you can't tell people it's stock MediaWiki code. You can tell people that it's based on that codebase, or that you've only change 10 lines, or any other factual statement, but you can't misrepresent the item.

A much more sane rule (which is perhaps still too restrictive for Free Software) would be to request that distributors of modified code offer people the ability to see the diffs as well as the final (changed) code. That way you could take any code and change it and distribute it, but if a user asked for it, you'd need to show them the diffs between what you got from upstream and the changes you made. This would be especially important if the upstream distribution point disappears. For most FOSS projects today, people are using distributed version control like Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, etc... , so anyone can trivially get the diffs by just checking out the repo and looking at the patches.

Look at the Open Source Definition and compare that with the Free Software Definition. I'm using the definitions from OSI and the FSF because, for all intents and purposes, I think that they have a reasonable claim on defining the corresponding term.

There are some licenses that are OSI-certified but not Free Software Licenses (according to the FSF). These include:

* The NASA Open Source Agreement, version 1.3
* The Reciprocal Public License

I'm also a bit wary of this part of the OSD:

The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time.

So that's saying that a license could be Open Source and not allow the distribution of patched files? That seems like a bizarre restriction. Their explanation doesn't really sell me:

Rationale: Encouraging lots of improvement is a good thing, but users have a right to know who is responsible for the software they are using. Authors and maintainers have reciprocal right to know what they're being asked to support and protect their reputations.

Accordingly, an open-source license must guarantee that source be readily available, but may require that it be distributed as pristine base sources plus patches. In this way, "unofficial" changes can be made available but readily distinguished from the base source.

The problems with this is that "distribution" can mean any conveyance. So that could mean that to install a program under such a license on a system, you might be required to patch and then compile the code on the actual device. Woe betide anyone who distributes code cross-compiled for a very low power handheld device that doesn't have much in the way of dev tools or system resources. Forget about checking your patched files into a publicly-accessible repository. And if you want to have a web viewer to look at the code, you better be using client-side javascript to do the patching or face the prospect of being in violation of "distribution" laws when you send a pre-patched filed across the Intertubes from your server to the user's browser.

It makes perfect sense to say "If you change this, you can't use our official name for it." I mean, if you bought a can of vegetarian beans and mixed in beef fat, you couldn't just turn around and sell it with the original packaging as you'd be misrepresenting the product. Similarly, if you take the MediaWiki codebase and mix in a few lines of your own code you can't tell people it's stock MediaWiki code. You can tell people that it's based on that codebase, or that you've only change 10 lines, or any other factual statement, but you can't misrepresent the item.

A much more sane rule (which is perhaps still too restrictive for Free Software) would be to request that distributors of modified code offer people the ability to see the diffs as well as the final (changed) code. That way you could take any code and change it and distribute it, but if a user asked for it, you'd need to show them the diffs between what you got from upstream and the changes you made. This would be especially important if the upstream distribution point disappears. For most FOSS projects today, people are using distributed version control like Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, etc... , so anyone can trivially get the diffs by just checking out the repo and looking at the patches.

Open Source Software can be Look but don't touch

No, it can't. From the OSD:

3. Derived Works

The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

You mean this MIT license? The one which says "do whatever you like, just don't sue and provide this notice"? The old Apache license is similar, and 2.0 even includes patent provisions.

Looks like the FUD already worked on you. Not all licenses are the same, nor are all OSS licenses viral.

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.html

Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.

Repeat this sentence three times: "Bundling is not binding." There, feel better?

The GNU General Public License v2 - An Overview (subsection on bundling and aggregation).

You can also read the GPL, v2 and the GPL, v3 for more information rather than spreading disinformation.

Repeat this sentence three times: "Bundling is not binding." There, feel better?

The GNU General Public License v2 - An Overview (subsection on bundling and aggregation).

You can also read the GPL, v2 and the GPL, v3 for more information rather than spreading disinformation.

Where did you check?

Admittedly, a free project like Netbeans doesn't have to accept contributions, but "Open Source" should mean a lot more than "you can see the source". It's confusion like the one you just expressed precisely why the "free" part of "FOSS" is also important.

Here's the question:

Does Open Source Software stand a chance with this guy or do we have to educate him on what OSS is all about?

The open source definition is a set of 10 criteria that "distribution terms" (i.e. a copyright license) must meet to be legitimately called "open source". The problem is that, if you're dishonest (and many people are), you can still use patent law or other means to render most of those criteria moot while still nominally meeting them.

On the other hand, FSF's free software definition only deals with the necessary results of those rules, rather than the rules themselves. It doesn't matter whether somebody's lawyers have figured out a clever way to cover all the "open source" checkboxes, unless you have the actual, meaningful freedoms to run, study, adapt, improve, and redistribute a program (including improved versions) to anyone for any purpose at any price, then the program is not free software.

The FSF has a fairly decent (and reasonably fair) comparison of "free software" vs "open source", entitled Why "Open Source" misses the point of Free Software

From the email:

Patent Covenant is however extended to the compilation and use of a compiled version (as Executable) of this software for study and evaluation purposes only, with the exclusion of distribution of compiled code or any other commercial exploitation.

Well, maybe someone is trying to argue that other OSI licenses also don't promise anything regarding royalty-free patent-licenses. But this is because licenses are predominantly about the author's copyright and not about the patents. However if the text of this licenses explicitely deals with patents and uses them to restrict users rights, then it formally violates already item 1 of the Open Source Definition.

Stallman's answer comes to mind

If your software would keep us divided and helpless, please don't write it. We are better off without it. We will find other ways to use our computers, and preserve our freedom.

RTFL.

It's very generous. Similar to the BSD license, which has been around for ages.

I really don't see why the parent was modded insightful. I realize that this is Slashdot, but shouldn't we at least RTFL (Read the Fraking License) before we say that it was somehow slipped in under the collective noses of the OSI? The text of the license is actually quite simple (it is less than one page). It basically says that you are granted permission under Copyright to distribute the contributions of others (i.e. the Software) OR yours (or not) for any purpose whatsoever and that if you have patents covering your contribution you agree to license them too (at least insofar as they relate to the contribution) free or charge. The license is all or nothing (i.e. you agree completely or you cannot use the software and enjoy none of the benefits of the license) and includes a basic "as-is" disclaimer on suitability, merchantability, warranties, etc as permitted by law (i.e. use at your own risk). The difference between this license and other OSI licenses, such as GPL, appears to be in the "duty to make source code available" department; so theoretically one could take the source code, add to or modify it, and re-distribute the results without having any duty to make the original source directly available (although one would have to include the terms of the license, thereby signaling to anyone whose head does more than hold up their hat that the original source is available elsewhere). If you believe that a grant of freedom to use a contribution that is not also tied to a duty to redistribute the source of the original AND the modifications is a violation of free software (a position that even Richard Stallman compromised on with the LGPL) then OK, but IMHO I find the license to be straightforward, simple, and fair.

The Open Source Initiative defines "open source" here: http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd. The Free Software Foundation defines "free" software here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.

"Free" software does not give me the freedom that I most want -- to incorporate available technology into non-GPL applications. "Open source" software often does, depending on the details of the license.

You may need to check the definition of Open Source. It doesn't ONLY mean that you can view the source code. It means you can modify it and redistribute it. Before trolling next time, educate yourself here:
http://opensource.org/docs/osd

GPL is certainly not the only free license. And what about people that go the "GPL\0for files in the \"GPL\" directory" way?

Well for the latter, obviously we'd fix the bug that allows poison null bytes to break a string, since that's a pretty serious security vulnerability in a web browser.

For the former, all of the following are valid in both HTML 4.01 Strict and XHTML 1.0:

<link rel="copyright" href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html" />

<link rel="copyright" href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php" />

<link rel="copyright" href="http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/licenses.mspx#Ms-PL" />

And all of the following work in any included ECMAScript file:

// License: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

// License: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php

// License: http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/licenses.mspx#Ms-PL

You certainly have the freedom to alter your user agent to require any set of licenses you're comfortable with.

You mean, "It's from Microsoft! It must not be labeled as open source, even if it is!"

If you aren't saying this, then maybe you can say in what aspect the license doesn't meet the Open Source Definition

.

Are you sure, Coward?

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ms-pl.html

Or you say it won't be released under ms-pl?

i have raised this question yesterdy in Apple Streaming-server-users list because of an statement of Obame about Barack Obama proves the power of Open Source http://www.opensource.org/node/372 i thought to myself that opensource is the only solution for evolving and learning in an university enviroment, but thats the only reply i got:

-- The reason why open source software is poorly adopted is because of freetards like you. You just have to push your opinions at every chance, even when they are clearly unwanted, such as in a technical listserv. People like you give OSS a bad name. You are rude, so OSS becomes associated with rude advocates like you who think that software quality is dependent more on arcane licensing issues than on pure functionality. Some of us have JOBS and have to solve technical problems to pay our rent. We may choose to purchase commercial software because it is an efficient solution to our problems. You can be part of the solution, or part of the problem. Your political rants are not contributing to any solutions. If you want to turn people away from OSS, then just keep doing what you're doing, act like a freetard, and give the world another reason to believe the whole realm of OSS is run by demented socialists and hippies. http://lists.apple.com/archives/Streaming-server-users/2009/Feb/msg00140.html

This does not look at all like a BSD like license. IANAL.

BSD says nothing about Licensing Derivative Work (2), Revision of License (7), Termination of License (9), or Patents (10), and many more.

it would be interesting to see if the Open Source Initiative would accept this as an open license. In any case it is more license proliferation.

This does not look at all like a BSD like license. IANAL.

BSD says nothing about Licensing Derivative Work (2), Revision of License (7), Termination of License (9), or Patents (10), and many more.

it would be interesting to see if the Open Source Initiative would accept this as an open license. In any case it is more license proliferation.

You make an interesting point in that it's free as in beer. However, isn't Java GPL'd nowadays?

Java 6 SE License. In a word, "no." Sun have talked about open sourcing Java, and I heard it was, but I just read the license and it does not look open-source to me. Regardless, I know for a fact they were not going to use the GPL, but another OSI-approved license, perhaps the Sun Public License?

You make an interesting point in that it's free as in beer. However, isn't Java GPL'd nowadays?

Java 6 SE License. In a word, "no." Sun have talked about open sourcing Java, and I heard it was, but I just read the license and it does not look open-source to me. Regardless, I know for a fact they were not going to use the GPL, but another OSI-approved license, perhaps the Sun Public License?

"use of this OSS for personal use is OK but for business use requires you to ....."

By definition, a license that tries to say this is not open source.

Contrariwise, many closed source licenses do say something like this. Why wouldn't the lawyer ask for them too?

Gee, I wonder why a lawyer would want to read a contract

A license isn't a contract.

before someone, who is not a lawyer, agreed to use the product

Reading a license before using a product is a very good idea. Reading every license before even considering using any of a wide class of products, particularly when most of those products just use copies of a few of the most generous and standardized licenses in the industry, is a waste of time.

Those "other licenses" in many cases collapse down to nearly one with a little bit different disclaimers and attribution requirements, If you take the OSI defintion and at the same time say you want a license with no source requirements, there aren't really many variations left. To me they fall into four categories:

1. Don't want source, everything can be proprietary (BSD and friends)
2. Want modifications to library, but rest can be proprietary (LGPL)
3. Want the source of the whole work (GPL)
4. 3. and guarantee you can run it in place of the original code (GPLv3)

The few differences otherwise are more practical fuck-ups that keep licenses from being compatible IMO. Either because of overzealous advertising (really, even if it's in the license we can hide it pretty well if we like) or because several licenses are trying to do the same thing, e.g. two copyleft licenses are always trouble. If you're really happy with just giving it away you might as well use the ISC license which is as short and sweet as possible and doesn't conflict with anything.

If you don't fulfill that you are not asking for a Free License, you are asking for an OPEN SOURCE license (which contrary to popular belief means ONLY that the source code is available, not that you automatically have the right to do with it as you please).

Your own link contradicts you:

The official definition of "open source software" (which is published by the Open Source Initiative and too long to cite here) was derived indirectly from our criteria for free software. It is not the same; it is a little looser in some respects, so open source supporters have accepted a few licenses that we consider unacceptably restrictive of the users. Nonetheless, it is fairly close to our definition in practice.

However, the obvious meaning for the expression "open source software" is "You can look at the source code," and most people seem to think that's what it means. That is a much weaker criterion than free software, and much weaker than the official definition of open source. It includes many programs that are neither free nor open source.

Since that obvious meaning for "open source" is not the meaning that its advocates intend, the result is that most people misunderstand the term.

The term open source was coined by the OSI and has always, since its inception, referred to the OSI's Open Source Definition. It has never meant merely that the source code is available. This is a simple misunderstanding, just like misunderstanding "free software" as meaning "software available for no cost".

If that's the case, then please send me all the source code to every Open Source program the "Intelligence Community" uses. I mean, it's truly Open, right?

When the Intelligence Community distributed to you software under the GNU GPL (v2), they gave you either

1. The source code;
2. A written offer to give anyone the source code (valid for at least three years); or
3. The instructions you need to get the source code [see the GPL for details].

If you want the source, you have the means. Use them, mm'kay? ;)

If the object code you got is under a non-copyleft license (such as the X11, MIT or BSD), no one is required to give you anything.

If you want to learn more, I can recommend http://www.gnu.org/philosophy, http://www.gnu.org/licenses, http://www.opensource.org/ and http://www.debian.org/social_contract among others.

Open Source doesn't mean you can point at anyone who uses it and say "give me that code". It means that they, in some cases, can point at the people who gave it to them and say "give me the code for that".

I hope I've cleared things up a bit, and keep on lovin' the open code :)

Bruce Perens was well-known in the open source community as the project leader of Debian and for founding the Open Source Initiative (and creating the Open Source Definition) long before his 2-year stint at HP.

and i don't recall Perens or any other open source leader ever claiming that Linux was a 'sure thing.' though pretty much every major system vendor (HP, Lenovo, IBM, Dell, Apple, etc.) today has a Linux division or is involved with FOSS in some way--a situation which Perens has played no small part in creating.

What already works for me on 64-bit Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex is this:

apt-get install openjdk-6-jre openjdk-6-jdk icedtea-gcjwebplugin

Sun has always made it a royal pain to use their java. For years they've always wrapped everything in click-through licenses, so you couldn't just download it and install it using your distro's packaging system. This version seems like more of the same, or maybe even worse. I went to the java.net page linked to from the article, downloaded the file. It's a shell script, and when you run it, the first thing it does is print out a license and ask if you agree to it. Some of the contents of the license:

• 3.1 Licensee may not duplicate Licensed Software other than for a single copy of Licensed Software for archival purposes only.
• 3.3 Except as otherwise provided by law, Licensee may not modify or create derivative works of the Licensed Software, or reverse engineer, disassemble or decompile binary portions of the Licensed Software, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code from such portions.
• 3.5 Licensee shall have no right to use the Licensed Software for productive or commercial use.
• 6.1 This Agreement will commence on the date on which Licensee receives Licensed Software (the "Effective Date") and will expire twelve (12) months from the Effective Date, unless terminated earlier as provided herein.
• 6.2 Either party may terminate this Agreement upon ten (10) days' written notice to the other party.

So in other words, it's not open source under the Open Source Definition.

I think it's great that Sun has GPL'd their implementation of java. Three cheers for Sun for doing that. But they've proved over and over again that any open-source project they control will have a closed development process, will ignore their user community, and will be a massive pain to install and work with. So the really good thing about Sun GPLing their version of java is that now, finally, we've gotten to the point where people other than Sun -- people who Get It about open source -- can take the ball and run with it.

My explanation wasn't that a product must be OSI approved to be open source. In fact, I haven't explained it yet, so here it goes: "open source" is what complies with the Open Source Definition.

By the definition you're apparently working with, any source is open, as if it can't be opened, it can't even be compiled. This makes your definition meaningless. Unless you can provide a meaningful alternative definition to the term "open source" that has actually been ever used by anyone but you, I'll be forced to believe that you're trolling me.

"The "Free" part of FOSS is defined namely as the part which allows a user to make and distribute copies of the software without paying a licensing fee (such as the GNU license). The "Open Source" part refers to the free as in libre ability to make changes to the source code, thus Open Source. This is how I see it and I think is the prevailing view."

Nope.

There is Free Software. As in the Free Software Foundation. http://www.fsf.org/ This is about Freedom, not price. Libre and not gratis.

There is Open Source Software. As in the Open Source Initiative. http://www.opensource.org/ This is the "marketing" of Free Software under another name so as not to scare people with the word Free.

FOSS is F/OS/S or Free Software combined with Open Source Software. [Free/Open Source/Software] That is the history of it to the best of my recollection and given with some short cuts and some language that may upset some but is not meant to. A way to call the thing by both names at once.

"The bottom line is everything costs something, whatever it is labeled."

Well, yes and no, but as I say, Free Software has never been about price. That is often a pleasant side benefit, but it is not the game. The game is freedom.

all the best,

drew

Here's your problem: Open Source is not Free Software.

"Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in."

"Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer. Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. "

Don't misquote him and then argue against the misquotation. He said the license criteria are derived from the FSF's. You changed it to the licenses. He's talking about how the Open Source Definition was based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines, and he's absolutely right.

And there are surely Open Source products that are not free. For example non-commercial clauses.

Considering the fact you actually capitalized the words Open Source I just wanted to point out that such a clause would go against the Open Source Definition as published by Open Source Initiative.

More specifically Section 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor:

The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

Rationale: The major intention of this clause is to prohibit license traps that prevent open source from being used commercially. We want commercial users to join our community, not feel excluded from it.

Is there any reasonable person/entity that doesn't consider the MS-PL Open Source? http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ms-pl.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source#Microsoft_Public_License_.28Ms-PL.29

This is why we have stuff like the GPL to prevent these very issues. I don't like attempts like this to undermine the F/OSS movement.

BSD is open source. As for "attempts like this to undermine the F/OSS movement", SCO? MS? Dissing one license or in the case of BSD one family of licenses doesn't reflect well on open source itself.

BSD license = developer/programmer freedom
GPL = user freedom

Falcon

Open source == can see source code.

Nope. Open Source is a license that conforms to the OSI Definition. The term was created specifically to prevent confusion, by only approving licenses with certain characteristics. MS are deliberately mixing software with OSI approved and non approved license and representing all of them as Open Source, hence they would not be eligible to use the OSI approved trademark (See previous link).

FOSS/Free software == GPL; Few restrictions on use.

Bzzt, wrong again. The GPL actually restricts users more than some OSI licenses (like no-advertising BSD), in order to ensure that the code remains free. Specifically, you cannot choose another license for GPL code unless it is GPL compatible. The difference is in the kind of restrictions. Restricting code to only one operating system family as MS are doing is completely unconscionable and can only be justified as a grab for market share. Its good for code to be ported (it exposes bugs), so MS's behaviour here is pretty transparent.

Or is this FOSS advocates trying to muddy the waters between 'open source' and 'free software'.If you don't want people confusing the two, then start using the correct term on your stuff.

Sage advice gone wrong here. You are aware of the origins of the terms FOSS/FLOSS right? They exist to differentiate between the two type of license. Its not in the interests of FLOSS authors to have users confused about what can be done with their software. It does fit into MS's established behaviour though (witness the naming of OOXML - 'Office Open' vs 'Open Office').

I am sure I will be a troll, or quickly corrected.

More of the latter than the former, I hope.

it is commonly understood to refer to software covered by a license meeting The Open Source Definition.

Commonly? What percentage of common man do you think would be able to define Open Source thusly?

...So open source != Linux, instead Linux is a subset of open source.

If you need a simplification that's more accurate, consider that it's M$ vs (closed source + open source).

M$ boosters have been working to try to conflate Linux and Open Source. Another goal has been to try to create a false dichotomy of choosing between Linux and M$. The choice is greater. You've got all kinds of Open Source, which Linux (both the kernel and the distros) are a part of. Unfortunately in areas with too much damage from Microsoftianism, the term "Linux" is used to mean any thing that is not M$

However, the name Open Source, with it's 10 criteria, is from the Open Source Initiative. Free Software, as a name, is older, having turned 25. (BTW WTF is up with /. to have missed that? Too many M$ boosters on staff?) Prior to that, it was simply called "software". It was self-evident that you got the source for use and modification and redistribution. Usually accompanied by some text file called README or COPYING giving the details.