MESSAGE
| DATE | 2006-05-23 |
| FROM | Richard Stallman
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| SUBJECT | Re: [rick@linuxmafia.com: Re: [Balug-talk] [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Its a sorry day for The Linux?Journal]
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Rick Moen wrote:
I (continue to) dispute my fried Richard's assertion that the open
source movement has only practical (pragmatic) goals. It has in my
experience the same goals as does the free software movement -- but uses
differing marketing terminology to advance those goals.
Your experience is very different from mine.
In my experience, statements that advocate "open source" cite only
practical goals, such as making software powerful and reliable. They
argue that software which is not open source is likely not to be
powerful and reliable; but when confronted with the non-free program
which IS powerful and reliable, they have no criticism to make.
You can see this clearly in the OSI web site, in the statements of
prominent open source opinion-leaders such as Torvalds, and in the
magazines and events that talk about open source.
Nick Moffitt wrote:
I wish I could remember who it was that first observed "Open Source
gives the same answer to every question that Free Software does, except
'Why?'"
There is a particular range of questions on which the answers may not
differ. These are the questions that concern free software
development projects. For questions involving the use of non-free
software, the two philosophies often lead to very different answers.
To mention one real example, consider the question, "If you are
developing a free program, and you find that a non-free version
control system helps you do the work, should you use it?" Torvalds
answered that question "yes" a few years ago. I would be surprised if
the OSI web site presents any argument to the contrary. The use of
BitKeeper for Linux development was ended by a person who advocates
free software as a matter of freedom.
Another real example is, "Should you add non-free drivers, programming
platforms, and apps to GNU/Linux distributions?" The free software
movement says, "No, because non-free software is unethical." By
contrast, supporters of open source typically consider their inclusion
a positive feature.
Another real example is, "There is a convenient program, or operating
system, which is not free. Should we start a large project to develop
a free replacement, or should we just use that non-free program?" The
free software movement says, "We can't use the non-free program, since
it tramples our freedom." The open source philosophy says, "If it
isn't open source, it might tend to be buggy in the future." That's
not a powerful motivating factor.
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