Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 23rd Jul 2009 22:53 UTC, submitted by Remy Chi Jian Suen
So, Microsoft submits 20000 lines of code to the Linux kernel, all licensed under the GPL. Microsoft, who considers Linux a great threat, and once called the GPL a "cancer". Opinions on this one are flying all around us, but what does Linus Torvalds, Linux' benevolent dictator, think about all this?
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Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2008-08-19
Free Software is an ideology. Open Source is a development methodology. FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) is referring to software created as a result of the Open Source development methodology by people who may or may not subscribe to the Free Software ideology.
Good distinction. Yes, Free Software is very much an ideology - that's practically the entire point of Richard Stallman's years of campaigning, the idea that code *should* be free. Free Software is based on the idea that it's practically immoral for a user not to have the ability to modify the software they use. That's why the GPL has that 'viral' behavior - to absolutely discourage free code from being used by those who don't share that ideology.
And don't get me wrong - I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. But Free Software *is* ideology driven, and it's only a subset of open-source development. Personally, I'm mostly in it for practical reasons - because if someone has already done 90% of the work on something, it's a lot easier to contribute that last 10% than to do the entire 100% yourself...
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Member since:
2007-01-18
"Ideology"? Wow, that gives it fat too much credit. It's a development methodology. That's all.
"
Free Software is an ideology. Open Source is a development methodology. FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) is referring to software created as a result of the Open Source development methodology by people who may or may not subscribe to the Free Software ideology.
Now, many non-Free Software, Open Source developers (such as Linus) have the ideology that Open Source is the best - if not only - methodology which should be used to create software, but that's an ideology about Open Source rather than Open Source itself actually being an ideology.
In any case, talking about ideology and FOSS isn't entirely incorrect because the Free Software side of things is indeed an ideology, but it confuses things because Open Source is, as you say, a development methodology.