Open Software VS Free Software

[Address From]""

JA: You regularly have to explain the differences between "free software" and "open source software", and yet the media continues to confuse these terms. For our readers that may therefor be confused themselves, can you explain the differences, and why it is important to get it right?

Richard Stallman: Free software and open source are the slogans of two different movements with different philosophies. In the free software movement, our goal is to be free to share and cooperate. We say that non-free software is antisocial because it tramples the users' freedom, and we develop free software to escape from that.

The open source movement promotes what they consider a technically superior development model that usually gives technically superior results. The values they cite are the same ones Microsoft appeals to: narrowly practical values.

Free software and open source are also both criteria for software licenses. These criteria are written in very different ways but the licenses accepted are almost the same. The main difference is the difference in philosophy.

Why does the philosophy matter? Because people who don't value their freedom will lose it. If you give people freedom but don't teach them to value it, they won't hold on to it for long. So it is not enough to spread free software. We have to teach people to demand freedom, to fight for freedom. Then we may be able to overcome the problems that today I see no way to solve.