Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

You seem to be under the very, very, very mistaken understanding that "Free Software" requires either the GPL or copyleft. Apache, MIT, BSD, GPL are all both Free Software licenses and Open Source licenses. The definitions make "Open Source" and "Free Software" almost synonymous.

But the term "Open Source" is much easier to co-opt and abuse. There are a variety of things that broadcast themselves as "Open Source" based only on the sense that "Hey you can look at our code! You can't actually do anything with our code, but hey you can look at it, so duh, it's Open Source!". This is not actually Open Source.

The problem with Open Source is that it seems intuitive that these Open Source posers could be correct--the "open" vs "open" clarification is more difficult and nuanced and not-intuitive esp. compared to clarifying the meaning of Free in Free Software as "free as in freedom" vs "free as in beer".



I understand the distinction. I am talking about the FSF pushing the GPL on everyone as if it's a one size fits all solution. There has been much debate on GPL vs MIT-style licenses and I believe both have their place.

Now, as far as OSS vs open-to-view-but-not-use, it's a different point. The problem is that you can have something like Android where Google has lots of control over where the software actually runs. Technically nothing would prevent you from forking it, putting together your own hardware and running a completely open platform that will compete with Google. Practically, it would cost you a lot of money. I actually think that CyanogenMod is a counter-example to this for Android: it is an open build of Android for the devices that support it. In reality, the problem with Android devices is not Android-the-OS. It's the closed bootloaders and the hardware that supports them. If only every phone's bootloader was as permissive as the BIOS on PC's (EFI notwithstanding), we wouldn't be complaining about this. You get your Moto X, nuke the Motoblur crap, install your favorite Android distro and you are good to go.

Another example: would you classify WordPress as free software? Most people do. The reality is that it is very tightly controlled by Automattic which has its own roadmap that is often times not public. You submit a patch to them, they sit on it, then produce their own solution in the next release that does things completely differently.

In the end, the license can do very little to prescribe governance of a project and that's what things most often come down to: who is in charge and how flexible are they? So we can debate the finer points of licenses or even what to call those licenses or we can write useful software where the source is available and others are free to run it and fork it.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: