OSNews

I am just wondering, why when people talk about freedom in software does the conversation come around to open source? Open sourced software is not the same thing as the free software that Richard Stallman advocates. There is a difference of intention and motivation. His article is talking about the impingement of freedoms, not about source-code availability. Open source is about sharing sourcecode to reap development rewards. Free Software is about sharing because it's ethically right.

His article isn't even about open source, or about linux. It's about basic human freedom. We should have the freedom to acquire and alter and redistribute software, not because that's a groovy sexy development model, but because that is in accordance with our human spirit. When people get on the open source bandwagon without being in touch with that sentiment, they are not talking about the same thing. There is a fine but definite line between the two.

See this quote from the author's website outlining this distinction:

Relationship between the Free Software movement and Open Source movement
The Free Software movement and the Open Source movement are like two political camps within the free software community.

Radical groups in the 1960s developed a reputation for factionalism: organizations split because of disagreements on details of strategy, and then treated each other as enemies. Or at least, such is the image people have of them, whether or not it was true.

The relationship between the Free Software movement and the Open Source movement is just the opposite of that picture. We disagree on the basic principles, but agree more or less on the practical recommendations. So we can and do work together on many specific projects. We don't think of the Open Source movement as an enemy. The enemy is proprietary software.

We are not against the Open Source movement, but we don't want to be lumped in with them. We acknowledge that they have contributed to our community, but we created this community, and we want people to know this. We want people to associate our achievements with our values and our philosophy, not with theirs. We want to be heard, not obscured behind a group with different views. To prevent people from thinking we are part of them, we take pains to avoid using the word ``open'' to describe free software, or its contrary, ``closed'', in talking about non-free software.

So please mention the Free Software movement when you talk about the work we have done, and the software we have developed--such as the GNU/Linux operating system.