summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/open-source-misses-the-point.html
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/open-source-misses-the-point.html')
-rw-r--r--talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/open-source-misses-the-point.html500
1 files changed, 500 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/open-source-misses-the-point.html b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/open-source-misses-the-point.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..772c73c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/open-source-misses-the-point.html
@@ -0,0 +1,500 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.90 -->
+<title>Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software - GNU Project -
+Free Software Foundation</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/open-source-misses-the-point.translist" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+<h2>Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software</h2>
+
+<address class="byline">by Richard Stallman</address>
+
+<div class="article">
+
+<blockquote class="comment"><p>
+The terms &ldquo;free software&rdquo; and &ldquo;open
+source&rdquo; stand for almost the same range of programs. However,
+they say deeply different things about those programs, based on
+different values. The free software movement campaigns for freedom
+for the users of computing; it is a movement for freedom and justice.
+By contrast, the open source idea values mainly practical advantage
+and does not campaign for principles. This is why we do not agree
+with open source, and do not use that term.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When we call software &ldquo;free,&rdquo; we mean that it respects
+the <a href="/philosophy/free-sw.html">users' essential freedoms</a>:
+the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute
+copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not
+price, so think of &ldquo;free speech,&rdquo; not &ldquo;free
+beer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>These freedoms are vitally important. They are essential, not just
+for the individual users' sake, but for society as a whole because they
+promote social solidarity&mdash;that is, sharing and cooperation. They
+become even more important as our culture and life activities are
+increasingly digitized. In a world of digital sounds, images, and words,
+free software becomes increasingly essential for freedom in general.</p>
+
+<p>Tens of millions of people around the world now use free software;
+the public schools of some regions of India and Spain now teach all
+students to use the free <a href="/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">GNU/Linux
+operating system</a>. Most of these users, however, have never heard of
+the ethical reasons for which we developed this system and built the free
+software community, because nowadays this system and community are more
+often spoken of as &ldquo;open source&rdquo;, attributing them to a
+different philosophy in which these freedoms are hardly mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>The free software movement has campaigned for computer users'
+freedom since 1983. In 1984 we launched the development of the free
+operating system GNU, so that we could avoid the nonfree operating systems
+that deny freedom to their users. During the 1980s, we developed most
+of the essential components of the system and designed
+the <a href="/licenses/gpl.html">GNU General Public License</a> (GNU GPL)
+to release them under&mdash;a license designed specifically to protect
+freedom for all users of a program.</p>
+
+<p>Not all of the users and developers of free software
+agreed with the goals of the free software movement. In 1998, a part
+of the free software community splintered off and began campaigning in
+the name of &ldquo;open source.&rdquo; The term was originally
+proposed to avoid a possible misunderstanding of the term &ldquo;free
+software,&rdquo; but it soon became associated with philosophical
+views quite different from those of the free software movement.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the supporters of open source considered the term a
+&ldquo;marketing campaign for free software,&rdquo; which would appeal
+to business executives by highlighting the software's practical
+benefits, while not raising issues of right and wrong that they might
+not like to hear. Other supporters flatly rejected the free software
+movement's ethical and social values. Whichever their views, when
+campaigning for open source, they neither cited nor advocated those
+values. The term &ldquo;open source&rdquo; quickly became associated
+with ideas and arguments based only on practical values, such as
+making or having powerful, reliable software. Most of the supporters
+of open source have come to it since then, and they make the same
+association. Most discussion of &ldquo;open source&rdquo; pays no
+attention to right and wrong, only to popularity and success; here's
+a <a href="http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Open-Source-Is-Woven-Into-the-Latest-Hottest-Trends-78937.html">
+typical example</a>. A minority of supporters of open source do
+nowadays say freedom is part of the issue, but they are not very visible
+among the many that don't.</p>
+
+<p>The two now
+describe almost the same category of software, but they stand for
+views based on fundamentally different values. For the
+free software movement, free software is an ethical imperative,
+essential respect for the users' freedom. By contrast,
+the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to make
+software &ldquo;better&rdquo;&mdash;in a practical sense only. It
+says that nonfree software is an inferior solution to the practical
+problem at hand.</p>
+
+<p>For the free software movement, however, nonfree software is a
+social problem, and the solution is to stop using it and move to free
+software.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Free software.&rdquo; &ldquo;Open source.&rdquo; If it's the same
+software (<a href="/philosophy/free-open-overlap.html">or nearly so</a>),
+does it matter which name you use? Yes, because different words convey
+different ideas. While a free program by any other name would give you the
+same freedom today, establishing freedom in a lasting way depends above all
+on teaching people to value freedom. If you want to help do this, it is
+essential to speak of &ldquo;free software.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>We in the free software movement don't think of the open source
+camp as an enemy; the enemy is proprietary (nonfree) software. But we
+want people to know we stand for freedom, so we do not accept being
+mislabeled as open source supporters. What we advocate is not
+&ldquo;open source,&rdquo; and what we oppose is not &ldquo;closed
+source&rdquo;. To make this clear, we avoid using those terms.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Practical Differences between Free Software and Open Source</h3>
+
+<p>In practice, open source stands for criteria a little looser than
+those of free software. As far as we know, all existing released free
+software source code would qualify as open source. Nearly all open
+source software is free software, but there are exceptions. First,
+some open source licenses are too restrictive, so they do not qualify
+as free licenses. For example, &ldquo;Open Watcom&rdquo; is nonfree
+because its license does not allow making a modified version and using
+it privately. Fortunately, few programs use such licenses.</p>
+
+<p>Second, when a program's source code carries a weak license, one
+without copyleft, its executables can carry additional nonfree
+conditions. <a href="https://code.visualstudio.com/License/">Microsoft
+does this with Visual Studio,</a> for example.</p>
+
+<p>If these executables fully correspond to the released sources, they
+qualify as open source but not as free software. However, in that
+case users can compile the source code to make and distribute free
+executables.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, and most important in practice, many products containing
+computers check signatures on their executable programs to block users
+from installing different executables; only one privileged company can
+make executables that can run in the device or can access its full
+capabilities. We call these devices &ldquo;tyrants&rdquo;, and the
+practice is called &ldquo;tivoization&rdquo; after the product (Tivo)
+where we first saw it. Even if the executable is made from free
+source code, and nominally carries a free license, the users cannot
+run modified versions of it, so the executable is de-facto nonfree.</p>
+
+<p>Many Android products contain nonfree tivoized executables of
+Linux, even though its source code is under GNU GPL version 2. We
+designed GNU GPL version 3 to prohibit this practice.</p>
+
+<p>The criteria for open source are concerned solely with the
+licensing of the source code. Thus, these nonfree executables, when
+made from source code such as Linux that is open source and free, are
+open source but not free.</p>
+
+<h3>Common Misunderstandings of &ldquo;Free Software&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;Open Source&rdquo;</h3>
+
+<p>The term &ldquo;free software&rdquo; is prone to misinterpretation:
+an unintended meaning, &ldquo;software you can get
+for zero price,&rdquo; fits the term just as well as the intended
+meaning, &ldquo;software which gives the user certain freedoms.&rdquo;
+We address this problem by publishing the definition of free software,
+and by saying &ldquo;Think of &lsquo;free speech,&rsquo; not &lsquo;free
+beer.&rsquo;&rdquo; This is not a perfect solution; it cannot completely
+eliminate the problem. An unambiguous and correct term would be better, if
+it didn't present other problems.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, all the alternatives in English have problems of
+their own. We've looked at many that people have
+suggested, but none is so clearly &ldquo;right&rdquo; that switching
+to it would be a good idea. (For instance, in some contexts the
+French and Spanish word &ldquo;libre&rdquo; works well, but people in India
+do not recognize it at all.) Every proposed replacement for
+&ldquo;free software&rdquo; has some kind of semantic problem&mdash;and
+this includes &ldquo;open source software.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The <a href="https://opensource.org/osd">official definition of
+&ldquo;open source software&rdquo;</a> (which is published by the Open
+Source Initiative and is too long to include here) was derived
+indirectly from our criteria for free software. It is not the same;
+it is a little looser in some respects. Nonetheless, their definition
+agrees with our definition in most cases.</p>
+
+<p>However, the obvious meaning for the expression &ldquo;open source
+software&rdquo;&mdash;and the one most people seem to think it
+means&mdash;is &ldquo;You can look at the source code.&rdquo; That
+criterion is much weaker than the free software definition, much
+weaker also than the official definition of open source. It includes
+many programs that are neither free nor open source.</p>
+
+<p>Since the obvious meaning for &ldquo;open source&rdquo; is not the
+meaning that its advocates intend, the result is that most people
+misunderstand the term. According to writer Neal Stephenson,
+&ldquo;Linux is &lsquo;open source&rsquo; software meaning, simply,
+that anyone can get copies of its source code files.&rdquo; I don't
+think he deliberately sought to reject or dispute the official
+definition. I think he simply applied the conventions of the English
+language to come up with a meaning for the term. The <a
+href="https://web.archive.org/web/20001011193422/http://da.state.ks.us/ITEC/TechArchPt6ver80.pdf">state
+of Kansas</a> published a similar definition: &ldquo;Make use of
+open-source software (OSS). OSS is software for which the source code
+is freely and publicly available, though the specific licensing
+agreements vary as to what one is allowed to do with that
+code.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The <i>New York
+Times</i> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2009/02/07/07gigaom-the-brave-new-world-of-open-source-game-design-37415.html">
+ran an article that stretched the meaning of the term</a> to refer to
+user beta testing&mdash;letting a few users try an early version and
+give confidential feedback&mdash;which proprietary software developers
+have practiced for decades.</p>
+
+<p>The term has even been stretched to include designs for equipment
+that
+are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/aug/27/texas-teenager-water-purifier-toxic-e-waste-pollution">published
+without a patent</a>. Patent-free equipment designs can be laudable
+contributions to society, but the term &ldquo;source code&rdquo; does
+not pertain to them.</p>
+
+<p>Open source supporters try to deal with this by pointing to their
+official definition, but that corrective approach is less effective
+for them than it is for us. The term &ldquo;free software&rdquo; has
+two natural meanings, one of which is the intended meaning, so a
+person who has grasped the idea of &ldquo;free speech, not free
+beer&rdquo; will not get it wrong again. But the term &ldquo;open
+source&rdquo; has only one natural meaning, which is different from
+the meaning its supporters intend. So there is no succinct way to
+explain and justify its official definition. That makes for worse
+confusion.</p>
+
+<p>Another misunderstanding of &ldquo;open source&rdquo; is the idea
+that it means &ldquo;not using the GNU GPL.&rdquo; This tends to
+accompany another misunderstanding that &ldquo;free software&rdquo;
+means &ldquo;GPL-covered software.&rdquo; These are both mistaken,
+since the GNU GPL qualifies as an open source license and most of the
+open source licenses qualify as free software licenses. There
+are <a href="/licenses/license-list.html"> many free software
+licenses</a> aside from the GNU GPL.</p>
+
+<p>The term &ldquo;open source&rdquo; has been further stretched by
+its application to other activities, such as government, education,
+and science, where there is no such thing as source code, and where
+criteria for software licensing are simply not pertinent. The only
+thing these activities have in common is that they somehow invite
+people to participate. They stretch the term so far that it only
+means &ldquo;participatory&rdquo; or &ldquo;transparent&rdquo;, or
+less than that. At worst, it
+has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/opinion/sunday/morozov-open-and-closed.html">
+become a vacuous buzzword</a>.</p>
+
+<h3>Different Values Can Lead to Similar Conclusions&mdash;but Not Always</h3>
+
+<p>Radical groups in the 1960s had a reputation for factionalism: some
+organizations split because of disagreements on details of strategy,
+and the two daughter groups treated each other as enemies despite
+having similar basic goals and values. The right wing made much of
+this and used it to criticize the entire left.</p>
+
+<p>Some try to disparage the free software movement by comparing our
+disagreement with open source to the disagreements of those radical
+groups. They have it backwards. We disagree with the open source
+camp on the basic goals and values, but their views and ours lead in
+many cases to the same practical behavior&mdash;such as developing
+free software.</p>
+
+<p>As a result, people from the free software movement and the open
+source camp often work together on practical projects such as software
+development. It is remarkable that such different philosophical views
+can so often motivate different people to participate in the same
+projects. Nonetheless, there are situations where these fundamentally
+different views lead to very different actions.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and
+redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable.
+But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are
+not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program that
+is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users'
+freedom. Free software activists and open source enthusiasts will
+react very differently to that.</p>
+
+<p>A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by
+the ideals of free software, will say, &ldquo;I am surprised you were able
+to make the program work so well without using our development model,
+but you did. How can I get a copy?&rdquo; This attitude will reward
+schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.</p>
+
+<p>The free software activist will say, &ldquo;Your program is very
+attractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. I
+will get my work done some other way, and support a project to develop
+a free replacement.&rdquo; If we value our freedom, we can act to
+maintain and defend it.</p>
+
+<h3>Powerful, Reliable Software Can Be Bad</h3>
+
+<p>The idea that we want software to be powerful and reliable comes
+from the supposition that the software is designed to serve its users.
+If it is powerful and reliable, that means it serves them better.</p>
+
+<p>But software can be said to serve its users only if it respects
+their freedom. What if the software is designed to put chains on its
+users? Then powerfulness means the chains are more constricting,
+and reliability that they are harder to remove. Malicious features,
+such as spying on the users, restricting the users, back doors, and
+imposed upgrades are common in proprietary software, and some open
+source supporters want to implement them in open source programs.</p>
+
+<p>Under pressure from the movie and record companies, software for
+individuals to use is increasingly designed specifically to restrict
+them. This malicious feature is known as Digital Restrictions
+Management (DRM) (see <a
+href="http://defectivebydesign.org/">DefectiveByDesign.org</a>) and is
+the antithesis in spirit of the freedom that free software aims
+to provide. And not just in spirit: since the goal of DRM is to
+trample your freedom, DRM developers try to make it hard, impossible,
+or even illegal for you to change the software that implements the DRM.</p>
+
+<p>Yet some open source supporters have proposed &ldquo;open source
+DRM&rdquo; software. Their idea is that, by publishing the source code
+of programs designed to restrict your access to encrypted media and by
+allowing others to change it, they will produce more powerful and
+reliable software for restricting users like you. The software would then
+be delivered to you in devices that do not allow you to change it.</p>
+
+<p>This software might be open source and use the open
+source development model, but it won't be free software since it
+won't respect the freedom of the users that actually run it. If the
+open source development model succeeds in making this software more
+powerful and reliable for restricting you, that will make it even
+worse.</p>
+
+<h3>Fear of Freedom</h3>
+
+<p>The main initial motivation of those who split off the open source
+camp from the free software movement was that the ethical ideas of
+&ldquo;free software&rdquo; made some people uneasy. That's true: raising
+ethical issues such as freedom, talking about responsibilities as well as
+convenience, is asking people to think about things they might prefer
+to ignore, such as whether their conduct is ethical. This can trigger
+discomfort, and some people may simply close their minds to it. It
+does not follow that we ought to stop talking about these issues.</p>
+
+<p>That is, however, what the leaders of open source
+decided to do. They figured that by keeping quiet about ethics and
+freedom, and talking only about the immediate practical benefits of
+certain free software, they might be able to &ldquo;sell&rdquo; the
+software more effectively to certain users, especially business.</p>
+
+<p>When open source proponents talk about anything deeper than that,
+it is usually the idea of making a &ldquo;gift&rdquo; of source code
+to humanity. Presenting this as a special good deed, beyond what is
+morally required, presumes that distributing proprietary software
+without source code is morally legitimate.</p>
+
+<p>This approach has proved effective, in its own terms. The rhetoric
+of open source has convinced many businesses and individuals to use,
+and even develop, free software, which has extended our
+community&mdash;but only at the superficial, practical level. The
+philosophy of open source, with its purely practical values, impedes
+understanding of the deeper ideas of free software; it brings many
+people into our community, but does not teach them to defend it. That
+is good, as far as it goes, but it is not enough to make freedom
+secure. Attracting users to free software takes them just part of the
+way to becoming defenders of their own freedom.</p>
+
+<p>Sooner or later these users will be invited to switch back to
+proprietary software for some practical advantage. Countless
+companies seek to offer such temptation, some even offering copies
+gratis. Why would users decline? Only if they have learned to value
+the freedom free software gives them, to value freedom in and of itself
+rather than the technical and practical convenience of specific free
+software. To spread this idea, we have to talk about freedom. A
+certain amount of the &ldquo;keep quiet&rdquo; approach to business can be
+useful for the community, but it is dangerous if it becomes so common
+that the love of freedom comes to seem like an eccentricity.</p>
+
+<p>That dangerous situation is exactly what we have. Most people
+involved with free software, especially its distributors, say little about
+freedom&mdash;usually because they seek to be &ldquo;more acceptable to
+business.&rdquo; Nearly all GNU/Linux operating system distributions add
+proprietary packages to the basic free system, and they invite users to
+consider this an advantage rather than a flaw.</p>
+
+<p>Proprietary add-on software and partially nonfree GNU/Linux
+distributions find fertile ground because most of our community does
+not insist on freedom with its software. This is no coincidence.
+Most GNU/Linux users were introduced to the system through &ldquo;open
+source&rdquo; discussion, which doesn't say that freedom is a goal.
+The practices that don't uphold freedom and the words that don't talk
+about freedom go hand in hand, each promoting the other. To overcome
+this tendency, we need more, not less, talk about freedom.</p>
+
+<h3>&ldquo;FLOSS&rdquo; and &ldquo;FOSS&rdquo;</h3>
+
+<p> The terms &ldquo;FLOSS&rdquo; and &ldquo;FOSS&rdquo; are used to
+be <a href="/philosophy/floss-and-foss.html"> neutral between free
+software and open source</a>. If neutrality is your goal,
+&ldquo;FLOSS&rdquo; is the better of the two, since it really is
+neutral. But if you want to stand up for freedom, using a neutral
+term isn't the way. Standing up for freedom entails showing people
+your support for freedom.</p>
+
+<h3>Rivals for Mindshare</h3>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Free&rdquo; and &ldquo;open&rdquo; are rivals for mindshare.
+&ldquo;Free software&rdquo; and &ldquo;open source&rdquo; are
+different ideas but, in most people's way of looking at software, they
+compete for the same conceptual slot. When people become habituated
+to saying and thinking &ldquo;open source,&rdquo; that is an obstacle
+to their grasping the free software movement's philosophy and thinking
+about it. If they have already come to associate us and our software
+with the word &ldquo;open,&rdquo; we may need to shock them intellectually
+before they recognize that we stand for something <em>else</em>.
+Any activity that promotes the word &ldquo;open&rdquo; tends to
+extend the curtain that hides the ideas of the free software
+movement.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, free software activists are well advised to decline to work
+on an activity that calls itself &ldquo;open.&rdquo; Even if the
+activity is good in and of itself, each contribution you make does a
+little harm on the side by promoting the open source idea. There are
+plenty of other good activities which call themselves
+&ldquo;free&rdquo; or &ldquo;libre.&rdquo; Each contribution to those
+projects does a little extra good on the side. With so many useful
+projects to choose from, why not choose one which does extra good?</p>
+
+<h3>Conclusion</h3>
+
+<p>As the advocates of open source draw new users into our community,
+we free software activists must shoulder the task of bringing the issue
+of freedom to their attention. We have to say, &ldquo;It's
+free software and it gives you freedom!&rdquo;&mdash;more and louder
+than ever. Every time you say &ldquo;free software&rdquo; rather than
+&ldquo;open source,&rdquo; you help our cause.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<h4>Note</h4>
+
+<!-- The article is incomplete (#793776) as of 21st January 2013.
+<p>
+Joe Barr's article,
+<a href="http://www.itworld.com/LWD010523vcontrol4">&ldquo;Live and
+let license,&rdquo;</a> gives his perspective on this issue.</p>
+-->
+<p>
+Lakhani and Wolf's <a
+href="http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-352-managing-innovation-emerging-trends-spring-2005/readings/lakhaniwolf.pdf">
+paper on the motivation of free software developers</a> says that a
+considerable fraction are motivated by the view that software should be
+free. This is despite the fact that they surveyed the developers on
+SourceForge, a site that does not support the view that this is an ethical
+issue.</p>
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+
+<div id="footer">
+<div class="unprintable">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to <a
+href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>. There are also <a
+href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> the FSF. Broken links and other
+corrections or suggestions can be sent to <a
+href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph,
+ replace it with the translation of these two:
+
+ We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality
+ translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection.
+ Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard
+ to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org">
+ &lt;web-translators@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+ <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of
+ our web pages, see <a
+ href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+ README</a>. -->
+
+Please see the <a
+href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations
+of this article.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 2007, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020 Richard Stallman</p>
+
+<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
+href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative
+Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
+
+<p class="unprintable">Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2020/10/06 08:00:33 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>