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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 01 2012 @ 08:52 AM EDT |
Not any of the above posters ...
I believe that you are beginning to aquire a pragmatic view
of the business world and what it's priorities really are.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 01 2012 @ 08:59 AM EDT |
"The love affair between corporations and the Apache
License..."
I also find it ironic to see permissive FOSS licenses
described as "business-friendly". You don't see many
corporations releasing *their* code under the Apache
license, for all to use and modify with minimal
obligations (basically nothing besides refraining from
plagiarism). Apache is only business-friendly when it is
*someone else's* code that can be grabbed with near-
impunity.
I don't see a future when Microsoft or Adobe release their
flagship products under the GPL, but it is even more
inconceivable that these companies would choose BSD, MIT, or
Apache. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 09 2012 @ 05:42 AM EDT |
PJ,
I largely agree with your post above. But one of the things (IMHO) that Richard
Stallman has gotten *so* right is the importance of terminology -- even if he
sometimes takes it to irritating extremes.
Here is my understanding of the history of the terms in this debate. Somebody
please point me to appropriate references if I am mistaken.
First there was Richard Stallman with his term "free software". To
(supposedly) make free software more palitable to business, some people came up
with the term "open source software (OSS). As best I have ever been able
to discern, this group of people were not in complete agreement as to the
relationship between OSS and free software. Some, such as (I believe) Bruce
Perens, simply viewed OSS as a synonym for free software while others, I
believe, didn't see such a close relationship. And even now, Simon Phipps, who
I have significant respect for, is trying to rehabilitate the term OSS to where
people realize it stands for freedom. (I am dubious about his chances of
success, but that is his stated goal and I believe him.)
That little excursion was for the point of coming to the terms FOSS, FLOSS, and
F/LOSS. Leaving the dental jokes aside, *my* understanding is these terms came
*after* the terms free software and open source software and that they
represented an attempt to emphasize the commonality between the free software
camp and open source software camp. (I believe people of goodwill can have
honestly differing opinions about whether that attempt was a good thing.) My
point is that "FOSS" came *after* the terms free software and OSS.
Nobody "forgot" what the F in FOSS stood for. The people you are
talking about never embraced it in the first place.
This may seem like splitting hairs, or worse. That is not my intent. The
reason I bring it up is because, as I initially mentioned, terminology is
important. If you wish to emphasize freedom, I would suggest sticking with the
terms free software, free as in freedom (FAIF), or some such rather than even
using FOSS since FOSS was an attempt to emphasize the (allegedly) commonality
betwee free software and open source software worlds rather than emphasizing
their differences.
I just off this as food for thought. While I usually try to avoid the term
"open source software", I do sometimes use FOSS or one of its cousins.
But when, as often is the case, I am wishing to emphasize freedom, I stick with
free software (usually taking pains to make sure the hearer/reader understands I
mean freedom) and FAIF. (To put it a little more bluntly, perhaps you should be
speaking of free software surviving rather than FOSS surviving! :-)
FOOTNOTE: The term free software does not imply a copyleft license such as the
GPL. There are a number of non-copyleft licenses that Richard Stallman and the
Free Software Foundation acknowledge are still free software licenses. Of
course, they still (rightly, IMO) advocate for copyleft licenses.
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