A quarter century of Mozilla

Posted Apr 7, 2023 20:53 UTC (Fri) by pebolle (guest, #35204)
In reply to: A quarter century of Mozilla by NYKevin
Parent article: A quarter century of Mozilla

> The only difference I have ever heard anyone point to is, basically, "Free software developers are doing it for ideological reasons and open source developers are doing it because they think it's more efficient" - but if that is really the only distinction, then there is no such thing as a "free software project" or an "open source project."

But the distinction between Free Software and Open Source is pretty fundamental. There actually are projects that consider themselves a "free software project" and those projects have certain boundaries they simply won't cross. So, yes, there are differences between Free Software and Open Source.

That projects are inanimate, that their developers are not a monolith, etc. are rather banal observations. (Your use of "ideological purity tests" is below the pretty high standard I'm used to see you use here, so I won't react to that.)

But, being in a sombre mood, I'm inclined to state state that Open Source has won. Most of the software I currently use is developed by people employed by extremely profitable corporations with ethics that I don't share. Yes, it's Open Source but it's seems to be written by people that noticed that money doesn't smell.

A quarter century of Mozilla

Posted Apr 7, 2023 22:18 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (1 responses)

> But the distinction between Free Software and Open Source is pretty fundamental. There actually are projects that consider themselves a "free software project" and those projects have certain boundaries they simply won't cross. So, yes, there are differences between Free Software and Open Source.

There are projects with things like the DFSG, it is true, but if I'm honest, the DFSG is the *only* example I can think of off the top of my head. The vast majority of FOSS projects are quite informal. Some of them do have codes of conduct or such, but this is typically more of a "be nice to each other" type of document than a "here's what we believe about the end user's freedoms" document.

> That projects are inanimate, that their developers are not a monolith, etc. are rather banal observations.

So what? This is not a refutation.

Either there is a difference between a "free software project" and an "open source project," or there isn't. I have yet to see any such difference put forward that I can seriously evaluate as an intrinsic property of the projects themselves. Instead, it is always an extrinsic property of the developers who happen to work on the project, and it is my opinion that such a definition is not particularly useful or informative. The actual projects do not materially differ in terms of the development processes, legal structures, or the rights and responsibilities of their developers and users. RMS likes to claim that "free software development" and "open source development" are entirely separate activities and movements (when he mentions "open source" at all), but I'm unconvinced that there is much truth to that. They are the same thing, just with different labels.

> Your use of "ideological purity tests" is below the pretty high standard I'm used to see you use here, so I won't react to that.

I'm not sure why this should be seen as inflammatory. My point is simply that neither brand of project makes any serious effort to keep out the developers who subscribe to the other brand, so while a project may choose to market itself as "free software" or "open source," there is no particular reason to believe that its developers actually subscribe to that belief. Sure, if a lot of developers were actively opposed to the label, they might change it, but it's my impression that most developers, frankly, do not care one way or the other, and so you end up with passive branding that means nothing and says nothing.

(Perhaps this is because people see the term "purity" as a snarl word? I did not intend it as such, but I suppose it could be read that way. I would like to reiterate that such testing is *not* something that the vast majority of projects do, and in fact I'm not aware of any project having done it. I only said "vast majority" because I did not want to make an absolute and unqualified claim, not because I think that some project out there is actually doing it.)

A quarter century of Mozilla

Posted Apr 11, 2023 6:03 UTC (Tue) by viiru (subscriber, #53129) [Link]

> > Your use of "ideological purity tests" is below the pretty high standard I'm used to see you use here, so I won't react to that.

> I'm not sure why this should be seen as inflammatory. My point is simply that neither brand of project makes any serious
> effort to keep out the developers who subscribe to the other brand, so while a project may choose to market itself as "free
> software" or "open source," there is no particular reason to believe that its developers actually subscribe to that belief. Sure,
> if a lot of developers were actively opposed to the label, they might change it, but it's my impression that most developers,
> frankly, do not care one way or the other, and so you end up with passive branding that means nothing and says nothing.

> (Perhaps this is because people see the term "purity" as a snarl word? I did not intend it as such, but I suppose it could be
> read that way. I would like to reiterate that such testing is *not* something that the vast majority of projects do, and in fact
> I'm not aware of any project having done it. I only said "vast majority" because I did not want to make an absolute and
> unqualified claim, not because I think that some project out there is actually doing it.)

I'll note here that understanding and agreeing to uphold the DFSG is a required step in being accepted as a Debian Developer. Whether this qualifies as an ideological purity test or not I couldn't say.