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Comment by dominicl | Hacker News Reader

Richard Stallmann has an interesting piece on FLOSS and FOSS definition, containing this:

> A researcher studying practices and methods used by developers in the free software community decided that these questions were independent of the developers' political views, so he used the term “FLOSS,”

Unfortunately he doesn't name that researcher, whom he is attributing FLOSS to. Anyone knows?

According to Stallmann "FLOSS" is the most inclusive term including open source with a non-free license though:

> Thus, if you want to be neutral between free software and open source, and clear about them, the way to achieve that is to say “FLOSS,” not “FOSS.”

So and I'm suprised by that, while L stands for libre according to Stallman, the acronym FLOSS is a actually a more liberal term because it is neutral to whether the software in question free or only open source.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.en.html

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"Open source with a non-free license" essentially doesn't exist.

The opensource definition [0] and free software definition [1] are similar enough in outcome (if not intent) that such a thing is basically impossible.

Last time I looked the only difference between the OSI's and FSF's lists of acceptable licenses was the OpenWatcom license, which requires you to release the source even when you just deploy it privately. This was a mistake on part of the OSI and should not have been accepted. At least Debian, Fedora and the FSF consider it to be unacceptable.

[0] https://opensource.org/osd [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

Unreal Engine? If I got it right you get the source but not the permission to redistribute it.

This is not "open source" as in the definition above. It's "source available".

Isn’t something like the MIT License open source but not “free software” in the rms sense because it does not encumber people who build on it to in turn produce free software themselves?

The open source page also says “ The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.” which would seem to disqualify the GPL.

Is free software really free if it encumbers people who build upon it to conform to its ideals?

I really think copyleft being free is a stretch people make because of what an uphill battle free software has. I mean peep the name 'copyleft'

It is quite easy for every side in a debate to convince themselves they’re on the side of “freedom” by giving different weights to various positive and negative freedoms, so I don’t consider this is a very useful line of inquiry.

> Isn’t something like the MIT License open source but not “free software” in the rms sense because it does not encumber people who build on it to in turn produce free software themselves?

No. The FSF considers the MIT license to be a Free software license compatible with the GPL. [1]

> The open source page also says “ The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.” which would seem to disqualify the GPL.

Section 5 of GPLv3 ("Conveying Modified Source Versions.") contains the following text:

'A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.'

IANAL, but to me, that means the license doesn't insist on all other software on the same medium being licensed under the GPL.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#X11License

Well, fair enough. It seems somewhat contradictory to the spirit of the thing, but if they count it who am I to disagree.

It's logical to assume the free/open source software disagreement would be over copyleft licenses, then the separation of the two would seem meaningful. But the spirit is mostly a disagreement over the use of the word "free," in 99% of cases both terms mean the same thing.

My understanding of it was that the "free software" movement is making moral claims about how software should be distributed while the "open source" movement is just saying "hey, this stuff is cool and useful" and doesn't have the same kind of uncompromising stance. Which would fit well with the license thing.

MIT is a free license according to the FSF, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html.

> Isn’t something like the MIT License open source but not “free software” in the rms sense because it does not encumber people who build on it to in turn produce free software themselves?

No, the FSF specifically IDENTIFIES MIT as meeting the Free Software Definition, which does not require any such requirement.

Now, Stallman and the FSF have identified reasons that they prefer copyleft licenses like the (A)GPL for many uses, but that isn't the same as considering them the only Free licenses.

The GPL explicitly does not put any restrictions on other software merely because if is distributed along with the licensed software.

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