Free vs. Open Re: OSI enforcement?

[Ernest Prabhakar]

Hi all,

>> So, no, I don't believe that the split was "most probably motivated  
>> by some
>> hidden supporters of proprietary licensing schemes" but a reaction  
>> to the
>> polarization of the issue by free software proponents.
>
> Unproven facts. The FSF has never condemned the existence of  
> proprietary
> schemes, but the fact that free software should have an equal right of
> existence. ("Free as freedom" as they claim since always, not "free  
> as as
> beer"). The FSF supports the development of commerce, and even  
> prohibits the
> restriction of its licences against commercial use (so CC-NC  
> licences are
> incompatible and really non free.)

Since this does seem to be a frequently-asked-question, I would  
encourage the various participants in this thread to focus on  
providing an answer to the FAQ:

"What is the difference between 'open source' and 'free software'?"

Hopefully we can come up with something Neutral-Point-Of-View that  
would help outsiders better understand the distinction.  Acceptable  
answers might be "Not much" and "It depends on who you ask." :-)

Thanks,
-- Ernie P.
L-D Moderator

On Jan 8, 2008, at 3:22 PM, Philippe Verdy wrote:

> Tzeng, Nigel H. [mailto:Nigel.Tzeng at jhuapl.edu] wrote:
>> So, no, I don't believe that the split was "most probably motivated  
>> by
> some
>> hidden supporters of proprietary licensing schemes" but a reaction  
>> to the
>> polarization of the issue by free software proponents.
>
> Unproven facts. The FSF has never condemned the existence of  
> proprietary
> schemes, but the fact that free software should have an equal right of
> existence. ("Free as freedom" as they claim since always, not "free  
> as as
> beer"). The FSF supports the development of commerce, and even  
> prohibits the
> restriction of its licences against commercial use (so CC-NC  
> licences are
> incompatible and really non free.)
>
> The FSF can't be accused of creating a polarization, because it has  
> existed
> long before OSI. The OSI is clearly an independent split of the  
> movement
> initially created, popularized and supported by the FSF. But the FSF  
> also
> recognized what others had made before (notably with the original  
> BSD and
> MIT licences, that have since then been abused and reused in closed
> proprietary schemes because they were not enough protected, and  
> that's the
> main reason why the GPL was created).
>
> Who is actually polarizing the debate? Not the OSI itself or its  
> supporters.
> It's clearly the supporters of closed proprietary schemes trying to  
> divide
> the movement, like they have already done against by severely  
> impacting the
> "public domain" (which was popular in the 1970's and the early  
> 1980's) so
> much that it is now very insecure and considered invalid and  
> unusable (too
> risky to use for long term projects) by many corporate or governmental
> users, because it is now easily defeated by laws with retroactive  
> effects
> and by patents that can steal almost everything in it.
>
> Personally, I won't create anything in the public domain now. We can  
> only
> trust the copyright in treaties and laws (author's right in  
> countries with
> Civil Code) because it is the only domain where we have security.
>
> That's why I need and want author's names, country of origin, and  
> year for
> all contents (some open source or free software forget this complete
> copyright line, in my opinion they are non-compliant if they don't  
> have a
> year of publication, and a country of origin to fix the legal  
> regime, and a
> way to determine an identifiable author). I am a strong supporter of
> copyright protection for all free and open source contents. The  
> "public
> domain" is intrinsicly flawed as it does not protect its users from
> illegitimate claims by others coming later with their patents (even  
> those
> registered *after*, because it's impossible to prove "prior art" with
> content published in the public domain without the signature secured  
> by the
> copyright notice).
>
>
>