from: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
by Richard Stallman
When we call software “free,” we mean that it respectsthe users' essential freedoms:the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistributecopies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, notprice, so think of “free speech,” not “freebeer.”
These freedoms are vitally important. They are essential, not justfor the individual users' sake, but for society as a whole because they promote socialsolidarity—that is, sharing and cooperation. They become evenmore important as our culture and life activities are increasingly digitized.In a world of digital sounds, images, and words, freesoftware becomes increasingly essential for freedom in general.
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 touse the free GNU/Linux operatingsystem. Most of these users, however, have never heard of the ethicalreasons for which we developed this system and built the free softwarecommunity, because nowadays this system and community are more oftenspoken of as “open source”, attributing them to a differentphilosophy in which these freedoms are hardly mentioned.
The free software movement has campaigned for computer users'freedom since 1983. In 1984 we launched the development of the freeoperating system GNU, so that we could avoid the nonfree operating systems that deny freedom to their users. During the 1980s, we developed mostof the essential components of the system and designedthe GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) to release them under—alicense designed specifically to protect freedom for all users of aprogram.
Not all of the users and developers of free softwareagreed with the goals of the free software movement. In 1998, a partof the free software community splintered off and began campaigning inthe name of “open source.” The term was originallyproposed to avoid a possible misunderstanding of the term “freesoftware,” but it soon became associated with philosophicalviews quite different from those of the free software movement.
Some of the supporters of open source considered the term a“marketing campaign for free software,” which would appealto business executives by highlighting the software's practical benefits, while not raising issues of right and wrong that they might not like to hear. Othersupporters flatly rejected the free software movement's ethical andsocial values. Whichever their views, when campaigning foropen source, they neither cited nor advocated those values.The term “open source” quickly became associated withideas and arguments based only on practical values, such as making or having powerful,reliable software. Most of the supporters of opensource have come to it since then, and they make the same association.
Nearly all open source software is free software. The two termsdescribe almost the same category of software, but they stand forviews based on fundamentally different values. Open source is adevelopment methodology; free software is a social movement. For thefree software movement, free software is an ethical imperative,because only free software respects the users' freedom. By contrast,the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to makesoftware “better”—in a practical sense only. Itsays that nonfree software is an inferior solution to the practicalproblem at hand. For the free software movement, however, nonfreesoftware is a social problem, and the solution is to stop using it andmove to free software.
“Free software.” “Open source.” If it's the same software, does itmatter which name you use? Yes, because different words conveydifferent ideas. While a free program by any other name would giveyou the same freedom today, establishing freedom in a lasting waydepends above all on teaching people to value freedom. If you want tohelp do this, it is essential to speak of “freesoftware.”
We in the free software movement don't think of the open sourcecamp as an enemy; the enemy is proprietary (nonfree) software. Butwe want people to know we stand for freedom, so we do not accept beingmislabeled as open source supporters.
The term “free software” is prone to misinterpretation:an unintended meaning, “software you can getfor zero price,” fits the term just as well as the intendedmeaning, “software which gives the user certain freedoms.”We address this problem by publishing the definition of free software,and by saying “Think of ‘free speech,’ not ‘free beer.’” Thisis not a perfect solution; it cannot completely eliminate the problem.An unambiguous and correct term would be better, if it didn't present otherproblems.
Unfortunately, all the alternatives in English have problems oftheir own. We've looked at many that people havesuggested, but none is so clearly “right” that switchingto it would be a good idea. (For instance, in some contexts theFrench and Spanish word “libre” works well, but people in India do notrecognize it at all.) Every proposed replacement for“free software” has some kind of semanticproblem—and this includes “open sourcesoftware.”
The official definition of“open source software” (which is published by the OpenSource Initiative and is too long to include here) was derivedindirectly from our criteria for free software. It is not the same;it is a little looser in some respects, so the open source people haveaccepted a few licenses that we consider unacceptably restrictive.Also, they judge solely by the license of the source code, whereas ourcriterion also considers whether a device will let you runyour modified version of the program. Nonetheless, their definitionagrees with our definition in most cases.
However, the obvious meaning for the expression “open sourcesoftware”—and the one most people seem to think itmeans—is “You can look at the source code.” Thatcriterion is much weaker than the free software definition, muchweaker also than the official definition of open source. It includesmany programs that are neither free nor open source.
Since that obvious meaning for “open source” is not themeaning that its advocates intend, the result is that most peoplemisunderstand the term. According to writer Neal Stephenson,“Linux is ‘open source’ software meaning, simply,that anyone can get copies of its source code files.” I don'tthink he deliberately sought to reject or dispute the“official” definition. I think he simply applied theconventions of the English language to come up with a meaning for theterm. The state of Kansas published a similar definition: “Make use of open-sourcesoftware (OSS). OSS is software for which the source code is freelyand publicly available, though the specific licensing agreements varyas to what one is allowed to do with that code.”
The New York Timeshas run an article that stretches the meaning of the term to refer touser beta testing—letting a few users try an early version andgive confidential feedback—which proprietary software developershave practiced for decades.
Open source supporters try to deal with this by pointing to theirofficial definition, but that corrective approach is less effectivefor them than it is for us. The term “free software” hastwo natural meanings, one of which is the intended meaning, so aperson who has grasped the idea of “free speech, not freebeer” will not get it wrong again. But the term “opensource” has only one natural meaning, which is different fromthe meaning its supporters intend. So there is no succinct way toexplain and justify its official definition. That makes for worse confusion.
Another misunderstanding of “open source” is the ideathat it means “not using the GNU GPL.” This tends toaccompany another misunderstanding that “free software”means “GPL-covered software.” These are both mistaken,since the GNU GPL qualifies as an open source license and most ofthe open source licenses qualify as free software licenses.
The term “open source” has been further stretched byits application to other activities, such as government, education,and science, where there is no such thing as source code, and wherecriteria for software licensing are simply not pertinent. The onlything these activities have in common is that they somehow invitepeople to participate. They stretch the term so far that it only means“participatory”.
Radical groups in the 1960s had a reputation for factionalism: someorganizations split because of disagreements on details of strategy,and the two daughter groups treated each other as enemies despitehaving similar basic goals and values. The right wing made much ofthis and used it to criticize the entire left.
Some try to disparage the free software movement by comparing ourdisagreement with open source to the disagreements of those radicalgroups. They have it backwards. We disagree with the open sourcecamp on the basic goals and values, but their views and ours lead inmany cases to the same practical behavior—such as developingfree software.
As a result, people from the free software movement and the opensource camp often work together on practical projects such as softwaredevelopment. It is remarkable that such different philosophical viewscan so often motivate different people to participate in the sameprojects. Nonetheless, there are situations where these fundamentallydifferent views lead to very different actions.
The idea of open source is that allowing users to change andredistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable.But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software arenot necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program thatis powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users'freedom. Free software activists and open source enthusiasts willreact very differently to that.
A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced bythe ideals of free software, will say, “I am surprised you were ableto make the program work so well without using our development model,but you did. How can I get a copy?” This attitude will rewardschemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.
The free software activist will say, “Your program is veryattractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program.Instead I will support a project to develop a freereplacement.” If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain anddefend it.
The idea that we want software to be powerful and reliable comesfrom the supposition that the software is designed to serve its users.If it is powerful and reliable, that means it serves them better.
But software can be said to serve its users only if it respectstheir freedom. What if the software is designed to put chains on itsusers? 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, andimposed upgrades are common in proprietary software, and some opensource supporters want to implement them in open source programs.
Under pressure from the movie and record companies, software forindividuals to use is increasingly designed specifically to restrictthem. This malicious feature is known as Digital RestrictionsManagement (DRM) (see DefectiveByDesign.org) and isthe antithesis in spirit of the freedom that free software aimsto provide. And not just in spirit: since the goal of DRM is totrample your freedom, DRM developers try to make it hard, impossible,or even illegal for you to change the software that implements the DRM.
Yet some open source supporters have proposed “open sourceDRM” software. Their idea is that, by publishing the source codeof programs designed to restrict your access to encrypted media and byallowing others to change it, they will produce more powerful andreliable software for restricting users like you. The software would then bedelivered to you in devices that do not allow you to change it.
This software might be open source and use the opensource development model, but it won't be free software since itwon't respect the freedom of the users that actually run it. If theopen source development model succeeds in making this software morepowerful and reliable for restricting you, that will make it evenworse.
The main initial motivation of those who split off the open sourcecamp from the free software movement was that the ethical ideas of“free software” made some people uneasy. That's true: raising ethical issues such as freedom, talking about responsibilities as well asconvenience, is asking people to think about things they might preferto ignore, such as whether their conduct is ethical. This can triggerdiscomfort, and some people may simply close their minds to it. Itdoes not follow that we ought to stop talking about these issues.
That is, however, what the leaders of open sourcedecided to do. They figured that by keeping quiet about ethics andfreedom, and talking only about the immediate practical benefits ofcertain free software, they might be able to “sell” thesoftware more effectively to certain users, especially business.
This approach has proved effective, in its own terms. The rhetoricof open source has convinced many businesses and individuals to use,and even develop, free software, which has extended ourcommunity—but only at the superficial, practical level. Thephilosophy of open source, with its purely practical values, impedesunderstanding of the deeper ideas of free software; it brings manypeople into our community, but does not teach them to defend it. Thatis good, as far as it goes, but it is not enough to make freedomsecure. Attracting users to free software takes them just part of theway to becoming defenders of their own freedom.
Sooner or later these users will be invited to switch back toproprietary software for some practical advantage. Countlesscompanies seek to offer such temptation, some even offering copiesgratis. Why would users decline? Only if they have learned to valuethe freedom free software gives them, to value freedom in and of itself ratherthan the technical and practical convenience of specific freesoftware. To spread this idea, we have to talk about freedom. Acertain amount of the “keep quiet” approach to business can beuseful for the community, but it is dangerous if it becomes so commonthat the love of freedom comes to seem like an eccentricity.
That dangerous situation is exactly what we have. Most peopleinvolved with free software, especially its distributors, say little about freedom—usuallybecause they seek to be “more acceptable to business.”Nearly allGNU/Linux operating system distributions add proprietary packages tothe basic free system, and they invite users to consider this anadvantage rather than a flaw.
Proprietary add-on software and partially nonfree GNU/Linuxdistributions find fertile ground because most of our community doesnot insist on freedom with its software. This is no coincidence.Most GNU/Linux users were introduced to the system through “opensource” discussion, which doesn't say that freedom is a goal.The practices that don't uphold freedom and the words that don't talkabout freedom go hand in hand, each promoting the other. To overcomethis tendency, we need more, not less, talk about freedom.
As the advocates of open source draw new users into our community,we free software activists must shoulder the task of bringing the issueof freedom to their attention. We have to say, “It'sfree software and it gives you freedom!”—more and louderthan ever. Every time you say “free software” rather than“open source,” you help our campaign.
Joe Barr's article, “Live andlet license,” gives his perspective on this issue.
Lakhani and Wolf'spaper on themotivation of free software developers says that a considerablefraction are motivated by the view that software should be free. Thisis despite the fact that they surveyed the developers on SourceForge,a site that does not support the view that this is an ethical issue.
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