Comment on Isn't technically everything open-source?
JTskulk@lemmy.world 1 year agoOpen source means you can read the source, Free software means you can modify and redistribute.
Comment on Isn't technically everything open-source?
JTskulk@lemmy.world 1 year agoOpen source means you can read the source, Free software means you can modify and redistribute.
fubo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Well, no.
The term “open source software” was specifically invented to refer to the same set of software licenses as “free software”; but with a different political angle.
Really. You can look it up.
JTskulk@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I remember reading the opposite back in the day, that this is why RMS dislikes the term “open source” and prefers “Free software” as more descriptive. Open source refers to software where you can read the source, but the license it’s under does not necessarily gaurantee freedom to the user.
fubo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The people who coined the term “open source software” disagree, though. They’re allowed to be right about the use of their own term.
(And extensionally, the set of software licenses accepted as “open source” by the “open source” people, and the set accepted as “free software” by the “free software” people, are the same set of licenses. Both agree that Microsoft “Shared Source” is not in this set, for example.)
JTskulk@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’ll take your word for it :)
Reva@startrek.website 1 year ago
But the same people who coined that term made some software “open source” but under licenses that only allow looking, not touching.