Actually not even that. It is just defined from the other point of view. Open source is free software. Free software is open source.
http://deblanc.net/blog/2018/12/13/the-osd-and-user-freedom/
http://deblanc.net/blog/2018/12/13/the-osd-and-user-freedom/
"Methods of development are tools being used to protect software freedom, which in turn is a tool to protect user freedom. User freedom, and what we get from that, is what’s valuable."
But Open Source and Free Software are not synonyms, as the rest of the article shows.
Open Source cannot account for itself or for why anything other than "having the source" is necessary. Free Software cannot accept just "having the source" on locked-down systems.
As the article shows, "Open Source" confuses epiphenomena (source availability) and affordances (collaborative development) of Free Software with its primary goal.
We see that confusion mislead people time and time again. It's doing so elsewhere in this discussion.
So if Open Source was named not to help corporations avoid talking about freedom but to avoid confusing people it has failed in its intended as well as its adopted usage.
> software freedom, which in turn is a tool to protect user freedom
is AFAIK an assumption, or has this ever been proven?
I mean, isn't it entirely possible that helping software startups protect their business model of whatever "near-enough" OS/free software they build will help user freedom more than taking a purist OSS stance and leaving it all up for grabs by Amazon, Alibaba etc.? Because of increased choice and competition?