Re: Wikipedia to merge Free Software and Open Source

"Philip Hunt" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.org.fsf.uk
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 06/04/2008, Tim Dobson <[email protected]> wrote:
> Philip Hunt wrote:
>
> > On 06/04/2008, Noah Slater <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > >  The Wikitrolls and OSI appologists on Wikipedia are planning to merge
> > > the
> > >  articles on Free Software and Open Source to avoid "nitpicking and
> > >  agenda-advancing" despite the obvious absurdity of this.
> > >
> >
> > It isn't obvious to me that this is absurd.
>
>  Open Source and Free Software are separate things.

I write software and license it under the GPL. Is this "Open Source"
or "Free Software"? The answer, of course, is that it is both.

> I think he believes here is that Open Source Software and Free Software
> have sufficiently different goals and ideals to merit different Wikipedia
> articles as opposed to a combined article.

Software doesn't have "goals" (unless it is some advanced AI project).
People who write software do of course have goals.

As I've mentioned, I write software and license it under the GPL. Can
someone tell me whether that makes me part of the "Free Software
Movement", the "Open Source Software Movement", both, or neither?

-- 
Philip Hunt, <[email protected]>
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