Ok, this one’s baffling, especially learning at the end that FLOSS is bad because it’s meant to de-emphasize the “libre” part.
All OSS software is inherently without cost, that seems unquestioned here. So free only ever means one thing to non-laypeople, in this context. So isn’t FOSS already the neutral middle ground between OSS and FS??
Regardless, I’m struggling to conceive of how a piece of software could be OS but not F. I guess if it’s, like, surveillance software known to be used by governments…? Maybe OSS that is paradoxically restrictively licensed, threatening any forks or unauthorized compilations with legal action? That seems like a terribly naive proposition, but I’m sure it’s been floated by at least one MBA…
In other words: you can argue all day about the justifications for OS’ing your S being more related to removing cost barriers or to sharing control, but in the end, you clearly have to do both. Making “F[L]OSS” redundant at best, confusing at worst!
Surely I’m missing something, bc I know this has been litigated for many thousands of hours both pre- and post-Eternal September. But rn it just comes across as baseless pedantry
Initially there was no Open Source or OSS. There was Free Software. This started a long time ago with things like GNU and later Linux, BSD etc. Richard Stallman codified what it meant for software to be Free. Specifically, it had nothing to do with cost. The "free" was free as in freedom, not free as in beer. Unfortunately English uses one word for both senses. Romance languages like Spanish still retain both: gratis means free as in beer and libre means free as in freedom.
Open Source was a later "rebranding" of free software by some people who fell out with Stallman and wanted to emphasise more the practical advantages over the ethical ones. Stallman wasn't happy because he felt (and still feels) the most important thing is that each person should be able to do computing freely.
Anyway, long story short, free software is nothing to do with cost. Horrible acronyms like "FLOSS" are to try to make everyone happy.
> All OSS software is inherently without cost, that seems unquestioned here.
I don't think so, you could charge money for FOSS (like charging for a built binary but having the source be FOSS) and it'll still be as much FOSS as any other FOSS out there. It isn't very common to do so, but there isn't any inherently wrong or incorrect with charging for FOSS.
How could you charge for a binary if people can just compile it on their own...? Honor system? I guess you could make it inconvenient to compile, but then is that really OSS?
It's interesting to reflect on what you're saying: you'd pay someone who forces you to, but not otherwise. So if someone built a house for you you'd only pay them if they threatened to come and burn it down, or they kept some way to remotely lock you out of it?
Hmmm. Well it’s software/IP, so as always I think we need to stay away from “would you download a car” talk.
With that in mind, the proposition is basically just the honor system. Which maybe works a little sometimes, among professionals? I paid for SublimeText to support them, for example. But WinRar is a very compelling counter example.
It feels like publishing a pdf of a book but with a big red “don’t click this until you’ve Venmo’d me $5!” above it. Regardless of what I individually would do, that’s just kinda… goofy?
> How could you charge for a binary if people can just compile it on their own...?
You don't make a binary publicly available, then you put the binary behind a paywall.
Some examples:
- Ardour - Lets you pull down the source and compile locally for free, or you pay to use their compiled binaries. Author/creator of Ardour hangs around on HN, maybe they could share their experience if they see this.
- Radium - Another DAW like Ardour, does it the same way.
- Fritzing - Designer for PCBs, same approach, pay for the binaries if you'd like, but free to compile from source if you can
I'm sure there are many more examples out there, but these are the ones I thought about when I wrote my previous comment.
The "F" (free), "L" (libre), and "OS" (open source) all mean the same thing, the acronym is just meant to make extra-sure to include all the ways people refer to that kind of software (last "S).
There is open source software that requires payment to obtain.
There is open source software that you are not free to do whatever you want with (non-libre)
There is software available at no cost which is neither open source or libre.
Just about every permutation of these 3 concepts has some actual example in the real world. Please do not promote the idea that they are in any way synonyms.
> What is an example of open source software that is not libre?
One example I am familiar with is an (old) project called LinuxSampler. It was (probably incorrectly) licensed GPL+modification clause that prevented its use in any commercial hardware project.
There have been some other projects that are released under what might be termed "GPL-but-no-military-use".
Unless you insist that open source means "there can be absolutely no limits whatsoever on the use of the source code" (which is not an unreasonable position), then they still fit into many people's sense of open source - they can do anything they would want to do with it.
The people I know who have added clauses like this do not believe they are breaking the spirit of open source; I'm not here to insist that they are right or wrong.
I'm here to insist they are wrong, because people's notion of a term is not actually what that term might mean. Call me an etymological prescriptivist but OSS has a defined meaning that no amount of vibes-based hand wringing will change, it pertains to the OSI definition in my view.
And let's not forget, licenses are legal contracts, so it behooves people even more to get them correct lest they be sued.
People disagree about this. If F is for free as in speech, what is the L for?
I've been in the GNU/libre/open source world since 1986. My experience is that the L (for libre) was added specifically because the english "Free" is ambiguous and too often interpreted as without-cost/free-as-in-beer/gratis.
Libre more specifically means the GNU licenses, as GNU didn't like that licenses like MIT were being called FOSS, as they don't preserve user freedoms like (A|L)GPL do.
Stallman wants people to say FLOSS to denote free software versus open source software, and my interpretation of this article is that he only deems the GNU licenses to be truly free (libre) software.
Stallman acknowledges the he did not invent the term, and describes how the "L" was added to connote freedom in the free-as-in-speech sense, rather than type of freedom the "F" was typically associated with.
FOSS was already a term to denote the other types of open source license like MIT, that is why FLOSS was specifically coined, to not only say that there is a difference in the word free, but also to differentiate GNU OSS license from the others.
