There has been much debate in the Free Software community about the term "Open Source". It has become a dividing issue that has fractured the community into two different groups! Although the Open Source community says it is the same as Free Software with a better sounding name, the truth is quite the opposite! The Open Source movement started back in the mid to late 90's as Free Software advocates and developers started to entice corporations and businesses to accept and use Free Software. However, the name "Free" in Free Software did not set well with the corporations.
Because if this, many in the Free Software community wanted to change the term "Free Software" to something more palatable and acceptable to businesses. So, after a while, they created the "Open Source definition" which defines what Open Source software is. People in the Open Source community will emphatically say that Open Source Software is really Free Software, and for the most part it is. Most Open Source Software is Free Software in that it is licensed under the GNU GPL, the Free Software license. The area of conflict is not the software per se, it is the mindset of the Open Source community!
As a whole, Open Source is about how good the software is or can be simply because the source code is available, or open. However, that is but one part of the equation! Open Source only looks at the usefulness, reliability, security, and efficiency of the software, but does not value the Freedom the software and the community provides! This is not to say that Open source is all bad, most of the open source software actually is Free Software because it is licensed under a Free Software License like the GPL. It just misses the mark of the moral, and ethical standards of Free Software! Like I said in my previous blog, the Freedom and the ethics of Free Software is more important than the software itself, and the Open Source people just can't see that!
What I would like to see happen is the unification of the Free Software Community and the Open Source community! It is strange that Linux, and other software developed by the Open Source world is free software, but they don't affiliate themselves with the Free Software community! Many people say that it is Richard Stallman and the Free Software movement who needs to compromise and come to the Open Source fold. But since Richard firmly believes in computing freedom, he will never bend. If the Open Source Community would strongly affirm that the ethics and freedom of Free Software is of supreme importance and reject the use of proprietary software, I strongly believe that Richard Stallman would accept the Open Source movement with open arms! Until that day comes, the Free Software movement and Open Source movement will continue to be estranged brothers!
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