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Comment by alpaca128 | Hacker News Reader

Open Source is not the same as Free Software and does not say much about the license other than that the source can be viewed. At least that is my understanding.

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Your understanding is incorrect. Open Source is an alternative term for Free Software[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_terms_for_free_sof...

His understanding was correct. Open source is not the same [1]. It might be an alternative but it is not the same as free software.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

Open source was coined by the guys at mozilla to avoid the ambiguity people are trying to create. Open source has a clear and well-defined meaning and it's not defined by whether the source is viewable.

Your understanding is correct. Open source means nothing more than you can view the source. It's just typically open source software also comes with a license that allows you to use it free, either with MIT or similar.

OSS !== FOSS

You are thinking of Source-Available Software[1], not Open Source. The sets of Open Source and Free Software licenses are (almost) identical. OSS == FOSS == FLOSS == FS, etc.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software

OSS, FOSS and FLOSS are not the same at all.

Your understanding is not correct. Open source does not only mean than you can view the source. If you're not familiar with the term, look it up. Don't make things up.

You should talk to RMS and ask his opinion then.

I responded to this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24886508

Reply on news.ycombinator.com