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When "open source" software isn't truly open source

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OSS

techrepublic.com: Free Software is a term that both promotes Stallman’s ideological goals regarding how software is distributed, thus turning off business-oriented software users who disagree with Stallman’s ideology, and manages to conflate itself with software that simply doesn’t cost anything.

Unfortunately, the fact is that many people misuse the term “open source software” when referring to their own software. In the process of looking for a decent dice roller IRC bot in 2010, I came across one called Bones. On the announcement page for it, Bones: Ruby IRC Dicebot, its author said the dicebot is:

Free: Like most IRC bots, Bones is open source and released free of charge.

In subsequent email discussion with its author, it turned out that his definition of “open source” is substantially different from that of the Open Source Initiative, me personally, and the entire open source community — to say nothing of Microsoft, Oracle, tech journalists, and just about everybody else who uses the term:

rest here




Free Software vs Open Source Software

I've said it a million times. Free Software refers to the license. Open Source refers to the development model, and has nothing to do with the license. MS has non-Free, Open Source Software which is a great example of this which they use to promote confusion of the term Open Source Software.

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