Re: Wikipedia to merge Free Software and Open Source

Noah Slater <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.org.fsf.uk
Organization The GNU Project <http://www.gnu.org/>
Message-ID <[email protected]> 
On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 10:34:54PM +0100, Philip Hunt wrote:
> 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.

Not always:

  * Free Software is about freedom.

  * Open Source is about development pragmatism.

You could develop some software in total secrecy and occasionally publish the
code with a GPL licence. This would be Free Software but to call it Open Source
would be a mistake because it does not follow an open development methodology.

By focusing on the licencing you are missing the bigger picture.

-- 
Noah Slater - The GNU Project <http://www.gnu.org/>
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