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cmsj | 4 months ago

I would argue completely the opposite, and that we actually have a very clear set of descriptors available to us, each of which is a subset of the following ones:

* Free Software - meets FSF's four freedoms

* Open Source - meets OSI's definition

* Source Available - you can read the source code

discuss

order

dahart|4 months ago

Yes we have clear & good descriptors available. I wasn’t arguing against those. I was simply pointing out that those aren’t the only definitions of the words free & open, which is a fact. It’s a fact that FSF and OSI have both used in their own arguments! I’m slightly surprised by the pushback and downvotes (which probably means I didn’t state things clearly or come off how I intended). OSI’s definition is logical today but took a long time to develop. It’s one of those things that’s hard to imagine never having heard, but if you had never heard it, you almost certainly wouldn’t jump to OSI’s definition upon hearing “open source” the first time. The lay public generally doesn’t either, and don’t know about licenses and the software community’s terms of art.