
How I realised “Free Software” is a better term than “Open Source” - xylon
http://www.naughtycomputer.uk/free_software_better_than_open_source.html
======
gumby
>> It’s not really about Freedom at all, because >99% of computer users are
non-programmers.

> Free Software gives us as a society the freedom to control our computers.
> And it gives us as individuals the freedom learn how to program them if we
> want to.

Most people are not car mechanics yet they benefit from the rules that require
3 party products and repair shops to be allowed to operate.

And the ability to rapidly build upon the work of others reduces the barriers
for new, interesting products to be built, which benefits everyone, even non-
programmers.

~~~
educar
Yes but you system is unable to create monopolies which is what business
owners want.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
Only big fish businesses benefit from monopolizing markets, everybody else
suffers from it.

~~~
ghostDancer
Those are the ones who pay politicians to change laws for their benefit.

------
openfuture
When I talk about free software I make sure to mention the word
'infrastructure' because that's what it is. Just like roads or electricity it
is a predicate for building a business (life) on top of.

Look at the biggest companies in the world (google, apple, facebook , amazon,
microsoft ..) they own platforms i.e. infrastructure! but since these
platforms aren't free you hear constant complaints from those who try to build
a life on top of them (app store ranking not fair? Search not fair?
OS/messenger/web browser/social network is walled garden? Etc.)

But even breathe the suggestion that taxes should support building reliable
infrastructure (i.e. already existing free software projects) and you'll get a
"government shouldn't interfere with functioning business" response.. no
matter what structural risk that business carries for society and even though
the "interfering" is just offering a viable alternative.

~~~
adrianN
I would be happy if taxes couldn't be used to pay for nonfree software. If all
government servers and government office PCs and school computers _had_ to run
free software, there surely would be money to support its development.

~~~
quadrangle
FWIW, the goal of the still-working-to-fully-launch funding system
Snowdrift.coop is to do the best we could on a voluntary basis in the absence
of tax-funded free/libre/open work. Like all public goods, these things are
the sort that make sense to fund through taxation, but getting political power
to make that happen is even harder than a half-way effort to increase
voluntary mutually-assured donations…

~~~
nobodyorother
I'd love it if SD.C allowed users to contribute extra money each period that
was banked as an endowment-like-fund and drawn on only to cover unexpected
shortages.

They're doing neat things, and I'd love to see it up and running.

------
WBrentWilliams
I've been kicking around a business plan idea for about seven years: A
software marketplace for items under a GNU license. The key: I neglect to put
that fact in the marketing.

The full license is posted with the software download, via a pop up EULA-style
window before the download proceeds complete with an "I Agree" nuisance
button.

The market starts with a price discovery model where I suggest a price and
allow the person pay whatever they want. After some data gathering, I simply
obfuscate the "pick-your-price" mechanism.

Yes, this is a bit of cherry-picking, where I employ some dark patterns. My
reason for this thought experiment is the crux of this article and discussion:
How do you explain software in the English language for which the rights of
the end user are enshrined while leaving a profit-path open for the creator?
My reply is: You don't. You focus, instead, on making the process of obtaining
the software as friendly and service-oriented as possible.

I wonder how spectacularly this idea will fail?

~~~
avar
Any free or open source software license does not need an EULA, and presenting
it as such is antithetical to the entire idea of free software.

You by definition do not need to agree to any free software license before you
use the software, you can vehemently disagree with it or completely ignore its
existence.

The license only exists to give you _extra_ rights you didn't already have
under standard copyright law (permission to distribute the program & modify
it, under certain conditions).

An EULA is a dubious legal hack used by proprietary software to deprive you of
rights you'd have had anyway if not for the EULA, which is the exact opposite
of how free software works.

Edit: A lot of people are replying to this saying I'm incorrect. I'm not. A
lot of free software licenses such as the GPL v2 spell out explicitly that
they have nothing to do with anything except copying/distribution or
modification:

    
    
        > Activities other than copying, distribution
        > and modification are not covered by this License;
        > they are outside its scope.[...]
    

The GPL v3 says the same thing in different words, and as FigBug points out
downthread the general FSF license FAQ makes this clear[1].

The Open Source definition also asserts this by proxy. Licenses aren't allowed
to impose any restrictions on users that they wouldn't have anyway if they had
no license to the software.

Really, if you use free software you can just completely ignore all the
licenses and you don't need to understand or have read any of them. This is
one of the beautiful things about free software that separates it from EULA-
using proprietary software.

Of course you need to understand the licenses if you want to distribute the
software in any way, but that entirely falls under the umbrella of activity
you didn't have permission for without the license, it would be copyright
infringement by default.

This is also why free software organizations like the FSF would as a last
resort sue someone for copyright infringement, not violating the GPL (but of
course adhering to the GPL would bring them back into compliance).

This is different from proprietary software companies which might sue you over
violations of their own made up rules, which you supposedly agreed to via the
EULA.

The EULA is a hack to try to apply contract law to your use of the program,
whereas free software & open source licenses purely piggy-back on copyright
law.

All those licenses are a way to say "here's stuff we allow you to do, which
you didn't have legal permission to do anyway in the absence of this license,
given certain conditions" (or no conditions for e.g. the WFTPL).

1\. [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-
faq.en.html#NoDistributionR...](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-
faq.en.html#NoDistributionRequirements)

~~~
uiri
Both EULAs and FOSS licenses are _license agreements_. Presenting them in the
same way is not disingenuous. The length of the GNU GPL rivals that of some
EULAs.

If you do not need to agree to a license before you use a piece of software,
then EULAs would be invalid. You _do_ need to agree to the license before you
use the software. That the license grants permission to run the software for
any purpose, usually with a disclaimer of liability, is irrelevant.

If you do not comply with (for instance), the terms of the GNU GPLv2, then you
no longer have a license to the software. That means that you must cease
distributing _and using_ that piece of software or be at risk of a lawsuit
from the copyright holder.

~~~
orangecat
_If you do not need to agree to a license before you use a piece of software,
then EULAs would be invalid._

As they should be according to 17 USC 117:
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117)

The standard dodge is that it refers to the "owner of a copy", while EULAs
claim that you do not own a copy and are only "licensing" it. Which is BS in
my opinion, but regardless the GPL specifically doesn't make that claim, so
you don't need to accept anything to run GPL software.

------
valine
I'm personally not a fan of the term free software. It makes me think of
trashy freemium software filled with ads and tricks to get you to install
browser extensions. Using the term open source creates a nice distinction
between ad funded software and truly free software.

~~~
dandelion_lover
In contrast, for me "open source" literally means opened sources, i.e. one can
read the source code. "Libre software" or FLOSS may be better alternatives for
those who care.

~~~
glubGlub
"Libre software" and FLOSS immediately sound politicized to my ear.

As in, such projects carry baggage, in the form of conflict and infighting
among developers, and one can expect irritating pedantry when discussing use
and preferences.

Usually, you'll encounter something akin to fanatical fans, expressing highly
opinionated views about minor details. Sometimes it's because lawyers have
been involved. It's not necessarily toxic, but often reflects splintered
cellular activity, among groups seeking to distinguish themselves from one
another for some reason.

~~~
dandelion_lover
>"Libre software" and FLOSS immediately sound politicized to my ear.

They are, because pursuing your rights is a political move.

"Free software is a political movement; open source is a development model." —
Richard Stallman [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#cite_note-95](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#cite_note-95)

>Usually, you'll encounter something akin to fanatical fans <...>

As in any fight for freedom there are all kinds of people: those who do not
understand, those who pretend they do not understand, those who do not know
why they are fighting, and so on. No one of them defines the goal of the fight
though.

~~~
waaiermat
The early Linux movement that later became part of the Open Source movement
was certainly also political. Stallman was actually one of the heroes of that
movement, which he apparently didn't realize. The difference was strategy. The
FSF wanted to ideologically educate and convert people while most people in
the Linux movement were focused on the number of users. The more users the
more influence. Facts on the ground instead of ideology. History has proven
them right.

------
smichel17
At snowdrift.coop we believe both freedom and openness are important values,
neither of which encompasses the other. So, we use the acronym FLO, for
free/libre/open, which has the nice side effect of sounding like the English
word "flow".

[https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/about/free-libre-
open](https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/about/free-libre-open)

\---

The author misses the most important reason, in my opinion, why "free
software" is _also_ a bad term: people think they already know what it means,
and thus don't really pay attention when you try to explain it. As such, I've
stopped using it completely during my advocacy.

Instead, I use "FLO software", "software freedom", or "unrestricted software"
\- the latter being good for when I don't have time to explain fully but also
don't want to give the wrong impression.

------
peatmoss
I realize that Stallman is a polarizing character, but I think the best
rationale for Free Software (the concept, perhaps not the term) being better
than Open Source is articulated by Stallman himself:
[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-
point....](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html)

I liken democratic institutions such as free elections and due process to the
differences between Open Source and Free Software. We don't do these things
primarily because of their instrumental utility or because they necessarily
yield the "best" results (e.g. Brexit, Trump, climate policy, etc.). We could
imagine a political framework with a benevolent computer working as dictator
that might do a better job, for some definition of better.

Instead, we have free elections and due process because we believe that they
are, morally and ethically speaking, the right thing to do. If you believe as
I do, that the human capacity for reasoning is greatly magnified by computers,
then that's a recognition that human cognition and computers are in some way
linked. Computers are the factors of production. De-democratizing those
factors of production—even if Microsoft/Apple/Google/Facebook make a great
product—is de-democratizing human thought to some degree.

------
pjmlp
I foresee that in about 10 years time when everything besides the Linux kernel
has been replaced by business friendly licenses, we will be back to the days
of shareware and public domain.

Personally I don't care, as I mostly use commercial software, but I bet those
FOSS devs that helped change the landscape and won't be able to access
whatever code comes in their devices might think otherwise.

~~~
loup-vaillant
> _I mostly use commercial software,_

You probably meant " _proprietary_ software". Please say so.

Much free software is also commercial. A famous example is RedHat. A less
famous, but much more common example is custom software: written for a fee, it
is definitely commercial. And it's Free too much of the time: customers often
have access to the source code, and the right to do whatever they want with
it.

 _" Free" and "commercial" are not mutually exclusive._

~~~
nickpsecurity
"Much free software is also commercial."

Almost all commercial software is proprietary. So much that free is barely a
blip on the radar. It's reasonable default much like a person can say they ate
a lobster without specifying it was red rather than the ultra-rare blue or
gold varieties. Everyone will assume the default of red unless specified
otherwise.

~~~
darpa_escapee
My OS (macOS), laptop, router, gaming console, watch, camera, computer, phone,
tablet, TV, set-top box, GPS unit and more run commercial software. They all
include "free software" somewhere in the stack. Whether it's the Linux kernel,
uclibc, busybox, libpng/libjpeg/libtiff or Webkit, it's there.

It's much more prevalent than people think, partly because it is rarely
discussed or acknowledged.

If we look at web applications, you can be assured that the vast majority of
them use free software somewhere in the stack. It's usually the case that the
majority of dependencies in such products are "free".

~~~
pjmlp
Your OS has a tiny layer of FOSS, which was partly part of NeXTSTEP and what
Apple needs for UNIX compatibility.

Everything that makes OS X special is proprietary.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Exactly. The core that was open-source, but not FOSS per FSF, is a system
almost no Mac user will directly use or develop apps for. The experience Mac
users get is almost totally proprietary by Apple. It's not only theirs in
copyright: they patent every aspect they can to sue anyone doing something
similar. Samsung will happily attest to that. Mac OS is about as non-FOSS as
it gets. Right up there with Windows on proprietary components, lock-in, and
patent suits by owner.

At least they're doing a nice, open-source project with LLVM. I'll give them
credit where it's due.

------
crawfordcomeaux
I'm looking forward to the followup where they realize "Free and Open" is a
better term than "Free" or "Open."

------
_tramjoe
What?

As _terms_ , none is "better" than the other, those are _different_ things. A
simple google search will reveal the definitions.

------
Safety1stClyde
> A month ago I wrote an article called "How I realised “Open Source” is a
> better term than “Free Software”". Now I change my mind completely and
> explain why everything I said was actually wrong.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pACePi441ds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pACePi441ds)

------
hannob
This is a bit funny. His argument is that the "Free Software" explanation is
longer and thus gives you more opportunity to explain it properly.

However originally the opposite is the case: The FSF explains free software
with the four freedoms [1], the OSIs Open Source Definition has 10 points [2].
If you dig into them you'll realize that they more or less mean the same.
Which is also usually the point I tend to make in these debates: How you call
it isn't so important, important is what it means.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition)

[2] [https://opensource.org/osd-annotated](https://opensource.org/osd-
annotated)

------
justinpombrio
The main point seems to be that the term "free software" is misleading, so you
get to describe its benefits when someone asks you what it is.

~~~
notahacker
Or, more likely, the term is so effective at misleading that 99% of people
hearing a reference to it assume it means software they don't have to pay for,
and don't ask what it means at all. cf Open Source, which is unlikely to be
misunderstood and likely to be the basis for a discussion on why access to
source code is important with anyone that isn't familiar with the concept.

The whole article reads like parody tbh. Also like the argument that true
software freedom involves not being free to use proprietary software, because
politics, and the bit about treating non-free software users as heretics also
being important for "a society that stands up for what is good"

~~~
nickpsecurity
My thoughts exactly. I get what they're trying to do with the free software
term but they're ignoring the psychology of the masses. Once a definition has
taken hold, it's best to use it the way it was solidified or create a new one
for a new concept. Bringing up "free," correcting the user that it's about
political freedom, politicizing software, and so on will bring up many
tangents like how people will get paid or should they.

Open-source w/ its differentiators focuses right on the benefits to the user.
I follow-up with real-world examples with things such as car development or
repair to help them see necessity of the benefits. Also explain how copyright
and patent monopolies reinforce the problems with simplest examples I can get.
This approach has worked well where people usually agree with most of it
regardless of political spectrum. The next thing they ask is about quality of
stuff nobody was paid to write. Replies to that seem to boil down to whether
they trust me to assess and tell them the truth. Very impacted by their own
beliefs on work ethic and markets.

------
galaxyLogic
Think about a cell-phone which has a built-in battery you can't replace. Isn't
that bit like software you can't modify?

Now should we require the cell-phone manufacturers to make their batteries
replaceable on ideological basis? It probably makes it cheaper to produce the
cell-phone if the battery is non-replaceable.

Similarly making your software open-source probably has costs associated with
it.

Should we insist that every producer of software must make their product open-
source? If it is unethical to produce closed-source software then clearly we
should. No?

~~~
boomboomsubban
>It probably makes it cheaper to produce the cell-phone if the battery is non-
replaceable.

From the manufacturers point of view, it's cheaper and more profitable. It
doesn't help the consumer though, I upgraded phones sooner than I otherwise
would have because my battery was dying.

>Similarly making your software open-source probably has costs associated with
it.

In the current climate, yes. If all software was already free, you could save
a lot of money not needing to repeat work that has been done.

We ideally should insist all software is free, but not everyone agrees that
proprietary software is unethical and laws aren't always driven by what is
ethical.

------
the_mitsuhiko
What Open Source achieved is that we can now build businesses and consimer
products quickly by sharing innovation with few strings attached.

Free software has limited overlap with that particular benefit of Open Source.

At this point in time I think of the two things as widely different so the
question does not even come up what's the better term.

~~~
Nomentatus
True so long as you aren't including GPL2 or GPL3 as open source - hellualot
of strings there for anyone with a hardware or software patent, which is why
so many billions have been spent replacing those licenses with more liberal
(MIT, BSD) ones across so much software.

~~~
pjmlp
So how well are *BSD doing in the market in regards to GNU/Linux?

When the only thing standing will be the Linux kernel, don't be surprised by
the amount of "freedom" you will get.

~~~
Nomentatus
The rights granted to the Linux kernel are "stranded" \- the kernel can't do
anything by itself so licensing to only it doesn't matter, so Google paid to
redo the GNU libraries under a BSD license to strand the kernel rights. Even
so, with Fuschia Google is replacing the Linux kernel, too, with its own BSD
(or MIT) licensed kernel. So, BSD is actually taking the whole field,
particularly measured by sales.

~~~
pjmlp
The license yes, but not the BSD operating systems variants.

How much do you think companies will bother to give back once they alienated
GPL software, given the actual contributions?

Nothing of relevance I tell you, just enough to keep the masses happy, AOSP
style.

I won't care, as I said I mostly use commercial software anyway, but it will
feel good to say "I told you so".

~~~
dragonwriter
> How much do you think companies will bother to give back once they alienated
> GPL software, given the actual contributions?

Plenty of permissively-licensed software projects have strong contributions
from commercial users.

~~~
pjmlp
Such as?

The AOSP, _BSD and LLVM ones surely aren 't such projects.

AOSP doesn't get any of the Google Services stack nor OEMs changes.

The _BSD hardly get any updates from all those routers and embedded devices
using them, to the point they were forced to beg for donnations last year.

clang is being adopted by embedded vendors that had to contribute their
changes back to GCC and now don't need to keep doing it.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Such as?

SQLite and Postgres are the main examples I think of for this.

> The AOSP, BSD and LLVM ones surely aren't such projects.

AOSP is almost entirely ongoing contribution by the primary commercial user,
so it would probably fit the description, though I was thinking of—without
having stated—specifically third-party commercial users, so it wasn't what I
had in mind.

> clang is being adopted by embedded vendors that had to contribute their
> changes back to GCC and now don't need to keep doing it.

Clang has a lot of corporate contributors, including all of the big three tech
companies. Not sure if any of the big contributors have closed downstream
derivatives or if they are just open-source users contributing back. Sure,
copyleft _prevents_ downstream use that doesn't contribute back, but it
doesn't necessarily maximize contributions back.

------
Mizza
I always wish they used the term "liberated" rather then "free". "Liberated
software" detaches from prices, detaches from licensing, keeps the desired
political associations, and translates fairly well internationally.

~~~
grzm
I understand where you're coming from. To me, "liberated" implies that the
software wasn't free in the past. I think that's one of the reasons for the
use of "libre" in some circles.

Now I've got images of a commando raid on a data center running through my
head. They're throwing open the doors to the cages and racks. Jerry
Bruckheimer, call me. Let's talk.

~~~
Mizza
I suppose so, but I don't see that as a disadvantage of the term, in fact it
opens up an interesting aspect of it: all software is, in a sense, imprisoned
by default. The author must explicitly "liberate" it for it to be considered
free.

------
RichardHeart
I found this Richard Stallman talk to be fantastic (found it here on HN)
[http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-speech-
arsdigita2001.og...](http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-speech-
arsdigita2001.ogg)

In it he describes that he searched for better terms than "free" as in free
speech not free beer and there were 60ish of them, but they all had problems
of their own.

the Free software movement did more to help open source OS's happen because it
was it's goal, than open source has done to create free OS's (because their
focus was only the specific problem they were solving, and not the holistic
many parts of an open source OS.)

Open source is less likely to pass the same licenses and freedom it was built
on down to the next iteration, for it's not legally required to do so (which
is why whether you got freedom with your X software or not was a function of
where you got it from. X software was free, but became unfree if you got it
compiled from certain vendors.

Open source documentation is also important, as software wit documentation is
better/easier to improve software.

When you use non free software, you advertise that you're ok with not helping
anyone else that might want you to, because you can't give them a copy of what
you have.

When about half of linux is Gnu and Gnu preceded linux, it's pretty unfair to
the Gnu community that they get about 0 credit from many publications, events,
the general public.

Thus you can give free software to the world, and they'll never even
understand what free as in speech and not beer is.

Free software is a political movement, open source software is more politics
agnostic. I think credit should be given where it is due, for only accurate
assignment of credit can reward the good and punish the bad.

P.S. Stallman is happy to see you make money on Free software. Free as in
speech, not beer. Also the best numbers I could find on what percentage of
linux is actually Gnu code is about 8% and linux code was about 9% with the
amnt of Gnu going down quickly if you were working on an embedded system. I
believe those numbers were from debian and 2014, but I'd be happy to hear a
better analysis.

------
squarefoot
Free software is definitely better than Open Source, but only if you imply
that free-as-in-freedom is granted. Otherwise you often get something free-as-
in-beer only like a mobile phone OS, which you surely don't have to pay for,
but restrict your use of it in many ways and doesn't respect your privacy, all
aspects having nothing in common with the concept of freedom. GNU GPL grants
this freedom, but the term "free" is often abused to imply free-as-in-beer
without the end user noticing the difference.

------
anta40
>> So in fact we must use only 100% Free Software to live the message and
spread the message.

For work & daily computing/tinkering, I don't mind ditching Windows completely
and use FOSS system like Linux (I mean GNU/Linux).

But leaving those AAA games is... kinda hard. Really really hard...

------
niceperson
[quoted as in article] >>DRM is great because it stops people pirating movies.

>It's like saying police brutality is good because it deters bad dudes. If we
have to do despicable things to force people to pay for things then our
society is broken.

lmao

------
ams6110
Bottom line nobody outside of the software community cares, and those in the
community already know what "free software" is.

~~~
quadrangle
I've had TONS of experience with dozens, maybe hundreds of people
professionally involved in software who did not understand free software until
I talked with them.

------
keppanaviimen
Free Software makes people think of "freemium" software.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Most people just think they get it without paying for it. That's the universal
definition of free at least in the U.S.. Attempts to redefine it are foolish.
When they talk about freedom, they literally say freedom. I'd have gone with
Freedom-Respecting Software if I was, say, trying to tie in freedom with
software for a U.S. audience. I have no idea what would appeal to people in
other countries.

~~~
Kim_Bruning
Other countries have separate words for "free" as in speech, and "free" as in
beer. Eg. french has libre and gratuit. German has frei and gratis.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I suspected as much. Thanks for tip.

------
an_account
And both, while noble causes, are unrealistic for most software products.

~~~
dTal
I would assert the contrary, that the types of software projects that benefit
from keeping the source secret are the minority. Most software is written to
fill some immediate and boring need, not as a commercial product or business
logic secret sauce. There's no real downside to sharing that - most likely no
one finds it useful, but on the off chance they do you suddenly have help with
it.

Admittedly it's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma; no one wants to put in the
(certain) effort of packaging up their software for external consumption for
the (uncertain) benefit of external help. But the culture is definitely
shifting.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Availability bias.

Most software people see is mass-distributed software: browser, OS, office
suite, games… And it is much easier to extract money mass-distributed software
when it is proprietary.

In reality, most software that is actually made is _custom_ software. Software
that only a handful of people see, because it has only 1 customer, if any.
Making that software free makes it _easier_ to extract money from (at least in
the short term), because source code availability is often sold for a price
(the understanding being, giving the source code also means giving up on
exclusivity for later maintenance).

~~~
Ace17
> In reality, most software that is actually made is custom software.

Do you have a source for this claim? (not denying, just curious to look at the
numbers!)

~~~
loup-vaillant
I recall Richard Stallman saying custom software comprises over 90% of the
effort. I myself has to physically meet _one_ person who is currently working
on massively distributed software. (I have met some who have worked in games
in the past.)

I don't have anything more precise, but it seems to make sense.

