DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Jun 20, 2023 1:01 UTC (Tue) by Paf (subscriber, #91811)
In reply to: DeVault: Reforming the free software message by Wol
Parent article: DeVault: Reforming the free software message

We all know that there was an early ethos of sharing that helped inform the later free software and open source movements. We *also* all know that the explicit ideas and legal formalization of them start with Stallman and the FSF, then the modern Open Source movement, with explicit ideas and licenses, comes a bit later. Come on, I don’t even like Stallman and I can admit this. It’s a pretty simple history.

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Jun 20, 2023 4:27 UTC (Tue) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (2 responses)

I think we can all agree that:

* Free Software (note caps) didn't exist before the printer story.
* Open Source didn't exist until well after that.
* The practices of the programming community resembled both free software and open source (note caps) long before the printer story.
* The differences between free software and open source are far too formalized, technical, and precise to "pick out" who got there first. Nobody wrote a manifesto about it or anything (before the printer story), and without that, you're left guessing as to the motives of individuals, for things they did many decades ago.

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Jun 20, 2023 8:01 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (1 responses)

> * The practices of the programming community resembled both free software
> and open source (note caps) long before the printer story.

To add a detail: Richard didn't invent free software, but he launched the movement. In the 70s, software was distributed as source code, and no one had thought of ways to restrict modification etc. So, with no effort, purely by circumstance, people had all the freedoms of (what was later defined as) free software. No movement was necessary.

Then people started distributing binaries and using copyright. So Richard launched a movement, and he called it "free software". And 15 years later others started calling it "open source".

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Jun 20, 2023 10:06 UTC (Tue) by SLi (subscriber, #53131) [Link]

I frankly think one reason for this is that "free software" is just a bad and confusing name for the thing. I grant that in the absence of the libre/gratis distinction in English, it may be that no better term that emphasizes the things RMS wants to emphasize exists, but that doesn't make it not a bad name, and to me it makes sense for people who have slightly different views of what the core of the ideology is to opt for a term that is much less confusing.

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Jun 20, 2023 17:31 UTC (Tue) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]

I don't think this is correct. This is the version of the story popularized by RMS, but it's incomplete. Other places were developing software with the same kind of sharing that RMS talks about, and they had their own licensing ideas. A bunch of those licenses- the GPL, the original BSD license, the X11 license, etc.- all came into being at about the same time. The original BSD license (which is Free Software according to FSF, even if it contains the obnoxious advertising clause) actually predates the GPL v1.0. I think the GPL was innovative as the first copyleft license, and the FSF was extremely important because it separated Free Software from the universities that had an unfortunate tendency to abandon their projects according to the whims of the faculty and administration, but they were not the single origin of free software.