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Discussion about licenses #4

Open b-rodrigues opened 2 years ago

fkohrt commented 2 years ago

Free software is like open source software, but it’s much more restrictive. [...] [Free software] does not allow [...] this: I cannot distribute (by selling or for free) the program without its source code.

I am not so sure about that.

  1. Software licensed under MIT or BSD license is also free software (according to FSF's definition).
  2. Software licensed under GPL is also open source software (according to OSI's definition).

The actual difference between free and open source software is much more nuanced (if existent at all):

It is expected by the FSF that all free software should also considered OSS by the OSI. For the other way round, there may be cases where this is not true, but most of the OSS should be free software as well. If requiring free software over OSS is not so much about the amount of software matching that criteria, what else is it about?

Free software is about protecting the user's freedom. From this perspective, nonfree software is a social problem. OSS instead has a more pragmatic approach, it is centered around the product being better in the end. Nonfree software just cuts efficiency on that road. This makes clear that requiring free software instead of OSS is about spreading freedom as a value.

b-rodrigues commented 2 years ago

Thank you for your comment; but I do think that it would be impossible to distribute (or sell) GPL'ed software without its source code.

bokov commented 2 years ago

The

Thank you for your comment; but I do think that it would be impossible to distribute (or sell) GPL'ed software without its source code.

The OP's point is that you are incorrectly using terminology in a way makes your article spread confusion. To me it sounds like your article is really about restrictive vs n ok non-restrictive open source licenses

fkohrt commented 2 years ago

I do think that it would be impossible to distribute (or sell) GPL'ed software without its source code.

I agree. But whether distribution of source code is required when distributing software is a question of the specific license terms and not one of OSD-conformance vs. FSF-freedom.

I agree with @bokov that your article – which I do find valuable as it discusses licensing in the R community 😀 – concerns the distinction between permissive vs. copyleft licenses, but not open source vs. free.

b-rodrigues commented 2 years ago

I see, I might clarify the post now, thank you for your inputs @bokov and @fkohrt !