2 Mar 2001 AlanShutko   » (Journeyer)

criswell:

You, too, seem to misunderstand the difference between free software and open source.

Take a look at this FSF page. Here's my quick explanation.

Specifically, free software does not require that the software be copylefted. Even RMS acknowledges that X-licensed software is free software.

In general, free software is the same software as open source software. But the emphasis is different. The free software movement emphasized the freedom to do whatever you want with software. This scares companies, so the open source movement deemphasizes this (though it's still in the OSD) and emphasizes the improvement in code that you get from having many people work on your code.

History: "Open source" as a term came about because of ambiguities in the term "free software". Unfortunately, it's just as ambiguous, as shown by people thinking SCSL software is open source.

other news:

Well, my delightful wife got me springies.com for my birthday. It's the domain name that came to me in a dream. I don't have any real hosting for it right now... just the domain name and some free services from the registrar pointing http://www.springies.com somewhere else. I want to switch to DSL and run the domain from home, but haven't gotten fully into DSL Roulette yet.

More fun with mmm-mode.

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