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This is why I found the FSF animosity towards "Open Source" perplexing I think you've misread something somewhere. Here is what the FSF says about "Open Source

This is why I found the FSF animosity towards "Open Source" perplexing I think you've misread something somewhere. Here is what the FSF says about "Open Source," and it doesn't seem like animosity: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htm... "We disagree on the basic principles, but agree more or less on the practical recommendations. So we can and do work together on many specific projects."

stcredzero 10y ago
I think you've misread something somewhere. Here is what the FSF says about "Open Source," and it doesn't seem like animosity Their stance has moderated over the decades. Also, it's not only what I've read from them online, I'm also referring to direct person to person interactions. Again, it's not the intellectual underpinnings, it's the stuff around it. If they're cleaning up their act in terms of outreach, then power to them. I would love to see a more politically effective FSF.
daveguy 10y ago
"Disagree on the basic principles" is diplomacy 101 fail -- a great way to project animosity. It is the basic principles on which they agree.
- cyphar 10y ago
  What are the basic principles of "open source"? Because as far as I'm aware, they don't include "user freedom". It's all about practical benefits which are not the primary benefits of free software (the primary benefit of free software is freedom).
  - ghaff 10y ago
    >Because as far as I'm aware, they don't include "user freedom". I'd largely disagree with that. I see "Open source" described (and describe it myself) as something that has many advantages as a way of developing software and developing communities (users and developers) around that software. But, at the same time, it's absolutely about letting users maintain control and being able to directly influence the direction of development.
    - cyphar 10y ago
      The "open source definition"[1] does not agree with your reading. In fact, that annotations appear to entirely skirt around the issue of freedom. For example, their claimed reasoning for freedom 1 (freedom to modify) is: > The mere ability to read source isn't enough to support independent peer review and rapid evolutionary selection. For rapid evolution to happen, people need to be able to experiment with and redistribute modifications. No mention of user freedoms or why this is important to users, just some nebulous claim that this is related to "evolution" and "experimentation". The entire OSD is written like this, with claims that the 10 completely-arbitrary-with-no-real-logic-behind-them tennants of "open source" will somehow make your software better. How? They don't say. The four software freedoms make sense if you discuss them from the context of freedom, but the 10 "open source" rights don't make sense outside the context of freedom. [1]: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
      - misrepresent 10y ago
        Do you think one mission statement on one website represents the position for all of us?
        catern 10y ago
        Clearly this has now devolved into mere semantics, but... if your position emphasizes user freedom, then your position is the "free software" position, not the "open source" position, just as a matter of the historical definitions of those terms. "Open source" was coined for the explicit purpose of de-emphasizing user freedom (that is, making the idea of FOSS more palatable to companies that were not interested in allowing user freedom). So...
        misrepresent 10y ago
        Look, he used a bullshit argument. One guy says, (paraphrasing) [open source has many advantages]. The next guy replies by quoting the opensource.org website as though that's the only definition available. A citation for a strawman doesn't make it valid. I have no idea who first put the words "open source" together, and neither do you. I think it's much more likely someone grabbed the term and added their own agenda to it after it was already popular. Regardless, assuming the original intention was as you claim, that doesn't mean everyone who uses that term now shares that view.
  - jackmott 10y ago
    Well, the source being open means that you are free, if only because any mistreatment occurring, you can open up VIM and delete it. You can be sure I would have done that with MS Office and OneDrive in the File menu, or reboots without permission on Windows 10 if I could.
    - cyphar 10y ago
      While Free Software and "Open Source" usually refer to the same software, they have different ethical views and have different reasoning behind why software should be free software[1]. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
      - tscs37 10y ago
        Did you perhaps mean "different reasoning behind why software should be open source/free software/free code"?
  - gaius 10y ago
    Well there's free as in speech. And free as in beer. And free as in working for IBM without getting paid.
    - lisper 10y ago
      And free as in allowing Facebook or Google to make money off of you by selling your attention as their product.
- icebraining 10y ago
  But it isn't - the basic principle behind the FSF and GNU is that proprietary software is unethical, whereas the OSI specifically rejected that position.
- krapp 10y ago
  And yet the basic principle they disagree on is the one fundamental religious tenet of free software - that proprietary licensing is a moral evil which should not be allowed to exist.
  - yxhuvud 10y ago
    Which is ironic, because the one that posits that is also the one that really needs the legal framework that make it possible to make something proprietary.
- Spivak 10y ago
  Unlike so many political issues, this is a rare case where two groups broadly actually agree on a course of action but disagree on the problem that necessitates it. * Software freedom is important because it produces quality software. * Software freedom is important because it protects the user from mistreatment.
  - misrepresent 10y ago
    I can believe there are some open source advocates who claim your first bullet, and there are a few cherry examples (i.e. Linux), but I'm guessing a lot of us are better represented by, "I appreciate when other developers share their work with me, so I'll share my work with other developers." From this point of view, it's easy to see how the GPL is an impediment to professional (proprietary) developers, and why we'd choose a license better suited to sharing with ourselves.
  - bad_user 10y ago
    I subscribe to neither of those philosophies you mention and it shows that this point of view is one that has been projected by the FSF. Open Source is important because it gives both users and developers control. Open Source is the ability to fork. And the irony of the situation is that these ideals where also embodied in Free Software, however the FSF has forgotten them, at least judging by their current behavior. For example AGPL should not be considered either an open-source or a free software license, because it redefines what redistribution is, effectively placing limits on usage. Up until GCC version 4.5 it didn't support plugins, being a monolithic thing, out of fear that proprietary tools could make use of it; you can thank LLVM for the positive changes in that area. And here's a recent fuckup of the FSF, that's very close to my heart, because I'm an Emacs user - apparently Emacs must hate MacOS, even though many Emacs contributors and plugins authors are using it: https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs/blob/emacs-25.1/etc/NEWS#L1723 https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs/blob/emacs-25.1/etc/NE...
    - bjelkeman-again 10y ago
      The way I think of it is that GPL (and the precursor the GNU emacs license) was created when distribution was primarily via magnetic media or downloads and hardly anyone ran software which wasn't local (BBS software excluded?). Which meant that as soon as you distributed GPL licensed software you also had to adhere to the license of sharing your improvements in source code. Then when the internet through the web became popular you could use GPL software without distributing it and many use cases which didn't exist previously for the distribution options in GPL just didn't create the intended effect where users who changed the software and distributed it should also share their changes. I would argue that AGPL didn't redefine what distribution is, but the capabilities and the use of the web redefined what distribution is, through software as a service. AGPL was an attempt to align the license with the original intent of GPL, which was to say that if you redistributed the software and change it, share your changes.
- bpchaps 10y ago
  At the very top of GP's article: This article has been superseded by a major rewrite, “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software, which is much better. We keep this version for historical reasons. With a bit less animosity further down: "The official definition of “open source software” (which is published by the Open Source Initiative and is too long to include here) was derived indirectly from our criteria for free software. It is not the same; it is a little looser in some respects. Nonetheless, their definition agrees with our definition in most cases." https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
fapjacks 10y ago
Maybe, but I used to work for a guy who organized a Free Software con some years ago, to which rms was invited. I watched the video of a former Sun employee up on stage talking about Open Source when rms walks into the room and, having discovered this presentation was about Open Source and not Free Software, audibly says "You fucking screwed me!" to my former boss. Whatever the FSF site says now, the animosity was definitely real.

stcredzero 10y ago

I think you've misread something somewhere. Here is what the FSF says about "Open Source," and it doesn't seem like animosity Their stance has moderated over the decades. Also, it's not only what I've read from them online, I'm also referring to direct person to person interactions. Again, it's not the intellectual underpinnings, it's the stuff around it. If they're cleaning up their act in terms of outreach, then power to them. I would love to see a more politically effective FSF.

daveguy 10y ago

"Disagree on the basic principles" is diplomacy 101 fail -- a great way to project animosity. It is the basic principles on which they agree.

cyphar 10y ago
What are the basic principles of "open source"? Because as far as I'm aware, they don't include "user freedom". It's all about practical benefits which are not the primary benefits of free software (the primary benefit of free software is freedom).
- ghaff 10y ago
  >Because as far as I'm aware, they don't include "user freedom". I'd largely disagree with that. I see "Open source" described (and describe it myself) as something that has many advantages as a way of developing software and developing communities (users and developers) around that software. But, at the same time, it's absolutely about letting users maintain control and being able to directly influence the direction of development.
  - cyphar 10y ago
    The "open source definition"[1] does not agree with your reading. In fact, that annotations appear to entirely skirt around the issue of freedom. For example, their claimed reasoning for freedom 1 (freedom to modify) is: > The mere ability to read source isn't enough to support independent peer review and rapid evolutionary selection. For rapid evolution to happen, people need to be able to experiment with and redistribute modifications. No mention of user freedoms or why this is important to users, just some nebulous claim that this is related to "evolution" and "experimentation". The entire OSD is written like this, with claims that the 10 completely-arbitrary-with-no-real-logic-behind-them tennants of "open source" will somehow make your software better. How? They don't say. The four software freedoms make sense if you discuss them from the context of freedom, but the 10 "open source" rights don't make sense outside the context of freedom. [1]: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
    - misrepresent 10y ago
      Do you think one mission statement on one website represents the position for all of us?
      - catern 10y ago
        Clearly this has now devolved into mere semantics, but... if your position emphasizes user freedom, then your position is the "free software" position, not the "open source" position, just as a matter of the historical definitions of those terms. "Open source" was coined for the explicit purpose of de-emphasizing user freedom (that is, making the idea of FOSS more palatable to companies that were not interested in allowing user freedom). So...
        misrepresent 10y ago
        Look, he used a bullshit argument. One guy says, (paraphrasing) [open source has many advantages]. The next guy replies by quoting the opensource.org website as though that's the only definition available. A citation for a strawman doesn't make it valid. I have no idea who first put the words "open source" together, and neither do you. I think it's much more likely someone grabbed the term and added their own agenda to it after it was already popular. Regardless, assuming the original intention was as you claim, that doesn't mean everyone who uses that term now shares that view.
- jackmott 10y ago
  Well, the source being open means that you are free, if only because any mistreatment occurring, you can open up VIM and delete it. You can be sure I would have done that with MS Office and OneDrive in the File menu, or reboots without permission on Windows 10 if I could.
  - cyphar 10y ago
    While Free Software and "Open Source" usually refer to the same software, they have different ethical views and have different reasoning behind why software should be free software[1]. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
    - tscs37 10y ago
      Did you perhaps mean "different reasoning behind why software should be open source/free software/free code"?
- gaius 10y ago
  Well there's free as in speech. And free as in beer. And free as in working for IBM without getting paid.
  - lisper 10y ago
    And free as in allowing Facebook or Google to make money off of you by selling your attention as their product.
icebraining 10y ago
But it isn't - the basic principle behind the FSF and GNU is that proprietary software is unethical, whereas the OSI specifically rejected that position.
krapp 10y ago
And yet the basic principle they disagree on is the one fundamental religious tenet of free software - that proprietary licensing is a moral evil which should not be allowed to exist.
- yxhuvud 10y ago
  Which is ironic, because the one that posits that is also the one that really needs the legal framework that make it possible to make something proprietary.
Spivak 10y ago
Unlike so many political issues, this is a rare case where two groups broadly actually agree on a course of action but disagree on the problem that necessitates it. * Software freedom is important because it produces quality software. * Software freedom is important because it protects the user from mistreatment.
- misrepresent 10y ago
  I can believe there are some open source advocates who claim your first bullet, and there are a few cherry examples (i.e. Linux), but I'm guessing a lot of us are better represented by, "I appreciate when other developers share their work with me, so I'll share my work with other developers." From this point of view, it's easy to see how the GPL is an impediment to professional (proprietary) developers, and why we'd choose a license better suited to sharing with ourselves.
- bad_user 10y ago
  I subscribe to neither of those philosophies you mention and it shows that this point of view is one that has been projected by the FSF. Open Source is important because it gives both users and developers control. Open Source is the ability to fork. And the irony of the situation is that these ideals where also embodied in Free Software, however the FSF has forgotten them, at least judging by their current behavior. For example AGPL should not be considered either an open-source or a free software license, because it redefines what redistribution is, effectively placing limits on usage. Up until GCC version 4.5 it didn't support plugins, being a monolithic thing, out of fear that proprietary tools could make use of it; you can thank LLVM for the positive changes in that area. And here's a recent fuckup of the FSF, that's very close to my heart, because I'm an Emacs user - apparently Emacs must hate MacOS, even though many Emacs contributors and plugins authors are using it: https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs/blob/emacs-25.1/etc/NEWS#L1723 https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs/blob/emacs-25.1/etc/NE...
  - bjelkeman-again 10y ago
    The way I think of it is that GPL (and the precursor the GNU emacs license) was created when distribution was primarily via magnetic media or downloads and hardly anyone ran software which wasn't local (BBS software excluded?). Which meant that as soon as you distributed GPL licensed software you also had to adhere to the license of sharing your improvements in source code. Then when the internet through the web became popular you could use GPL software without distributing it and many use cases which didn't exist previously for the distribution options in GPL just didn't create the intended effect where users who changed the software and distributed it should also share their changes. I would argue that AGPL didn't redefine what distribution is, but the capabilities and the use of the web redefined what distribution is, through software as a service. AGPL was an attempt to align the license with the original intent of GPL, which was to say that if you redistributed the software and change it, share your changes.
bpchaps 10y ago
At the very top of GP's article: This article has been superseded by a major rewrite, “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software, which is much better. We keep this version for historical reasons. With a bit less animosity further down: "The official definition of “open source software” (which is published by the Open Source Initiative and is too long to include here) was derived indirectly from our criteria for free software. It is not the same; it is a little looser in some respects. Nonetheless, their definition agrees with our definition in most cases." https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

fapjacks 10y ago

Maybe, but I used to work for a guy who organized a Free Software con some years ago, to which rms was invited. I watched the video of a former Sun employee up on stage talking about Open Source when rms walks into the room and, having discovered this presentation was about Open Source and not Free Software, audibly says "You fucking screwed me!" to my former boss. Whatever the FSF site says now, the animosity was definitely real.