Re: Open source - Free software

[Alexander Terekhov]

"Alfred M. Szmidt" wrote:
> 
>    >I think it is.  Note that I was talking about "free software", the
>    >term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation,
>    >not "freeware", which is just software you don't have to pay for.
> 
>    "Free Software" is open source.  Free software, like free milk, is
>    something you aren't charged for.  It's a shame they chose such an
>    ambiguous word.
> 
> "Free Software" is not "Open Source", since Open Source also means
> non-free software.  

Do you mean just your retarded inability to parse and grok NOSA? 
Doctors aside for a moment, did you contact NASA for assistance? Any 
other examples, GNUtian ams?

> Free software is also not 

http://opensource.org/advocacy/free-notfree.php

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The Real-World Evidence

In mid-2004, the President of OSI did a statistical Web-content analysis
on the usage frequencies of the phrases "open source" and "free
software. You can read that analysis here. A summary of the conclusions:

    * Among software developers and in the technology trade press, use
of the term "open source" dominates use of the term "free software" by
95%-5% or more.
    * On the general Web, the ratio is 80%-20% or more.
    * The gratis/libre ambiguity in the term "free software" produces
about an 80% false-positive rate in Web searches.
    * Use of the term "free software" is in long-term decline, and older
or obsolete pages form a larger part of its share than for "open
source".
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regards,
alexander.