Re: Revisionist Open Source

[Hyman Rosen]

Rjack wrote:
> The conceptual underpinnings of "open source" and its benefits
> predated ESR

Of course. It was those underpinnings that inspired Stallman to
invent his notion of free software, after all, when the openness
was taken away from him.

However, the (capitalized) Open Source movement was a deliberate
counter-reformation to Stallman and the FSF. The movement wanted
to promote the benefits to companies of an open source model in
distinction to the FSF-promoted freedom for users. They wanted
"business-friendly" open source, so that companies and programmers
could create better software more easily, and not be required to
provide their users with the four freedoms.

They are welcome to do that, but the FSF is also free to point out
the harm of such an approach to the freedom of users. They also
believe that promoters of Open Source sometimes obfuscate the
distinction between it and Free Software.