Arduino: "Open-Source" != "Free Software" [GPL]

AFAIU, Open Source and Free Software have very similar meanings. Saying that "GPL programs are Free Software but not Open Source" (which is, I think, the point you are making) does not seem true to me. Also, I'm not sure if there are very strict definitions of these terms, they probably don't appear in the dictionary. The OSI and GNU definitions are probably the most commonly used: http://opensource.org/osd and https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Having said that, it seems that "Free Software" is a better term from an ideology point of view. However, when appealing to a greater public, perhaps "Open Source" is easier for people unfamiliar with the concept (since they'll likely interpret "Free software" as free-beer instead of free-speech).

I'll leave it to the people in charge of the Arduino site to decide what term they prefer, but I'm arguing that neither term is necessarily wrong in the current context.

Open Source licences do not allow any "privatization: capabilities (see the Open Source definition at the OSI site).
Free Software has started from the beginning with commercialization in mind.

An "open source" licence nowadays is the same thing as a "free software" licence. There have been times in the past when this might have not been true for some very specific and little used licences, but this is not the case any more for any licence I know of.

The meaning difference is philosophic: my preferred short description is that open source cares about diffusion and quality, freedom comes as a nice side effect; free software cares about freedom: quality and diffusion come as useful side effects.

Hi

I totally disagree.

There are OpenSource commercial products : when you purchase, you get
access to the source code for customization,. However this doesn't give you
any right to redistribute neither the source nor the binary if any. This is
the case for some PHP framework for example. I had in the past purchased
CRM framework in PHP.

Free software (or freeware in short) doesn't mean that source is
available, just that you can license it without paying.

GPL, LGPL, MIT, BSD… are example of free and open-source licenses. They
are specifically written to stick together these 2 different concepts.

It doesn't mean that it has always to be the case.
The difference still exist and at no point we shall allow both to merge in
the general public mind.

My 2c.

Jean-Michel (barbudor)
Le 27 déc. 2013 18:04, "fpoto" [email protected] a écrit :

Open Source licences do not allow any "privatization: capabilities (see
the Open Source definition at the OSI site).
Free Software has started from the beginning with commercialization in
mind.

An "open source" licence nowadays is the same thing as a "free software"
licence. There have been times in the past when this might have not been
true for some very specific and little used licences, but this is not the
case any more for any licence I know of.

The meaning difference is philosophic: my preferred short description is
that open source cares about diffusion and quality, freedom comes as a nice
side effect; free software cares about freedom: quality and diffusion come
as useful side effects.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/arduino/Arduino/issues/1758#issuecomment-31270564
.

@barbudor

"Free software (or freeware in short) doesn't mean that source is available, just that you can license it without paying." ..... WHAT!!??

Free Software == freeware ??!!!?!?!?!?!?

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

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

Freeware is software that you can use without paying, but it is privative: you can't acces to source code, and it is ilegal to try modify it.

Free Software (free as in freedom) is software that paying or not you can acces to source code -ALWAYS- and you have this freedoms:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (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 distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Please read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

The Core difference between Free Software and Open Source is that in Free Software the freedom it's the most important thing, Source code will be -ALWAYS- available, and you can't turn free software in privative software (take off the freedom), Open Source focus on source code availability, but it is posible to turn open source projects into privative, hide source code and remove sharing freedom.

So that's why Free Software Licenses (GPL, LGPL) that worry about freedom permanence are different of Open Source ones (MIT) that just make source code available, but it does not worry about freedom permanence.

So Free Software says Freedom Matters, Open Source just give you the code, even if you snatch the freedom

Apologize my english, i'm not a native speaker/writer.

First of all, let me say that what the Arduino people say is correct, so no need to change anything.

I'll try in the following to dissipate some of the confusion that most posters have had on the "free software" and "open source" terms. If you need more in-depth knowledge, you should refer to the two main texts on this issue, that are the free software definition at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html and the open source definition at http://opensource.org/osd-annotated. Both are authoritative sources.

In summary, as I have stated above, when speaking of software (or hardware, for that matter) licences, the two definitions are equipollent. In fact, the OSI definition of open source was meant from the beginning to be a rewording of the free software definition which did not mention the concept of freedom. Differences are philosophical.

As far as the misunderstandings above:

• GPL, LGPL, MIT are all free software licences, and obviously they are open source licences as well - check http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html for a list of some free software licences and http://opensource.org/licenses for a list of open source licences. Both are authoritative sources
• as far as "it is possible to turn open source projects into privative, hide source code and remove sharing freedom", this is not true for any open source licence, once software has been released. Obviously, the author can release a version with a different licence, even a proprietary one, but this does not change the terms of previously released versions. Exactly the same things are true for free software as well (in fact, free software licences are also open source licences), and the reason is how the copyright law works.
• "free software" and "freeware" are two different things, as barbudor explained.
• while it is true that you can be asked to pay for free software (or for open source software), once you get it you can modify and redistribute it at will: if you cannot both modify and redistribute it, it means that the licence is not an open source licence (and neither it is a free software licence).
• I do not know of any currently used software licence which is an official open source licence yes it is not considered a free software licence by the FSF; such cases have happened in the past for some little-used licences, which in practice are not used any more; in the general case, a free software licence is an open source licence, and viceversa.