On Friday 14 April 2006 02:33 am, Dinesh Joshi wrote:
I think this would clear things up:
The "Free" in Free Software referred to by Richard Stallman is "Freedom" and not "Free" as in the cost of the software. People used to associate the word "Free" with "Creap", "Low quality" thats the reason they coined the word "Open Source".
The reason the term "Open Source" was coined was to change the world view that gpld software was political and idealogical (which it mostly is ). This helped dilute the political message and focus on the practical aspects of performance and costs, thusmaking it more platable to bussiness. They have succeeded to an extent that now u have two bit reporters and "technologists" pratilling nonsense about free software and even worse companies deliberately misreading or mischaracterising the gpl to extract undue advantage. Which created the necessitity for GPLV3.
BUT Open Source software gives you the "freedom" to modify them but they can also be sold at a price > $0 which means you need to *pay* for the software _and_ you'll get the source along with it.
Not true. Open source licences show you the code but can have nasty side effects. And gpld software can be sold for whatever price u deem fit.
An excellent example would be RHEL. You need to pay for it and you get it's source along with it. The beauty of OSS is that someone can buy RHEL, modify its source, and sell or give it away for free. This is currently whats happening with Cent OS.
This is my understanding of the OSS and "Free Software" philosophy of Richard Stallman / FSF. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The prime difference between the FSF and the OS camp is that the FSF values freedom over everything else and says so particularly to those who dont want to hear. OS guys say look there are tremendous advantages in freeing the source so please consider doing so.
So u have Solaris which is free in their own jail.