Free versus Open Source

What's the difference?  Well, in email correspondence with Richard Stallman, he pointed me to the facts!

BOTH FREE and OPEN SOURCE software have the following conditions laid forth:

1. Users are free to use the program for any purpose.
2. Users are free to examine the source code to see how it works.
3. Users are free to distribute the program to others.
4. Users are free to improve the program.

Um... So What's the difference? Open source doesn't advocate for the people's freedom which is the "WHY" behind the Free Software Foundation's movement. Open Source is a different camp with very similar aims as the FreeSoftware foundation in some respects - but is slanted to make projects more appealing to corporate usage via their vernacular so they are adopted.

Here is the Link Richard Stallman sent me to look at, I recommend you take a look for yourself regardless of your view points: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

So what is Jegas, LLC's view in all of this? We sell some software licensed so we are by definition the "enemy" alongside folks like Microsoft, Norton, MindJet, etc. to name a few.  However, Jegas, LLC has a few  Open source  projects of our own. After talking with Richard, I've decided to go through our Open Source Offerings and change the vernacular from Open Source to Free Software because frankly, the reason we "open source" a project or make a software package "free" is because of our desire to share something with the community in the hope that it gets used widely and folks have fun with it or find it useful in some way.

Well, that's all - I thought this would be a interesting article!

 

 

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