[FSF India] Open Source is not (exactly) Free Software

[Vivekananda Prabhu]

Hi,

One of the complaints against my postings has been
that I have been trying to tarnish the image of "Open
Source" movement purposefully.

So I have decided to expose the bull-spin of "Open
Source" movement with quotes taken from "Open Source"
web site

1) "Open Source Software is same as/marketing for Free
Software"

This is No.1 bull-spin by OSS. ( Read
http://www.debian.org/intro/free )

"Note: In February 1998 a group moved to replace the
term "Free Software" with "Open Source Software". As
will become clear in the discussion below, they both
refer to essentially the same thing. "

I can disprove this from the *very* definition of
"Open Source Software"

(Read http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.html)

"4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code
The license may restrict source-code from being
distributed in modified form only if the license
allows the distribution of "patch files" with the
source code for the purpose of modifying the program
at build time. The license must explicitly permit
distribution of software built from modified source
code. The license may require derived works to carry a
different name or version number from the original
software."

By any stretch of imagination a software that uses
section (4) cannot be "Free Software" but it *is*
"Open Source Software"

2) "Open Source software treats GPL on par with other
OSS licences"

(Read http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html )

"The first four are the "classic" licenses most
commonly used for open-source software before the
Mozilla release in early 1998. The Mozilla Public
License has since become widely used. "

The First four are GPL, LGPL, BSD & MIT licences.They
have been clubbed as "classic" (read old & obsolete)
which were widely used prior to MPL. Now MPL has
become most widely used (replacing these. So use MPL).
The above paragraph is nothing short of blatant
marketing for MPL (for obvious reasons)

3) "Open Source Software is not against Free Software
movement"

(Read http://www.opensource.org/docs/history.html )

"References to "open source" begin to fly thick and
fast in the trade press, with positive spin (see the
graph below). Within the hacker community itself the
terminological (and underlying ideological) debate
winds down, with "open source" emerging as a clear
majority choice. Use of the term "free software"
begins a reciprocal decline. "

Do you need any more proof that "Open Source" movement
is a 3E (Embrace, Extend & Extinguish) campaign
against Free Software movement by the corporates

More OSS spin on "Free" licences

"Sun Microsystems, clearly feeling the pressure from
open source, makes Solaris available under a *free*
license to individual users, also to
educational/non-profit/research institutions"

Another attempt to confuse the users on the issue of
"Free Software" & "Free licences" ( Solaris is
available for free of cost Binary distribution only.
No source code)

"15 March 1999: 
Apple release Darwin (the core software of MacOSX)
under an open-source license (a technical flaw in the
license is later rectified)."

A flaw in an Open Source licence is fine as long as it
is rectified in a later release.I have objection to
usage of date 15-mar here. Darwin was released under
an actual Open source licence much later. But that
seems to be OK with Open Source Movement ( This shows
how much do these guys really care about "Open Source"
philosophy)

Regards,
Vivek



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