zlacker

>>gnufx+(OP)
He laments that users "don't know about the freedoms we promote which are increasingly in their interest", but wasn't this the point of Open Source as compared to Free Software, to refocus the messaging from the user's freedoms to the economic benefit for companies?

The Free Software Definition mentions "user" 22 times and "freedom" 79 times, whereas the Open Source Definition has zero occurrences of these terms. It doesn't seem surprising that the user freedom message isn't getting through if you completely scrub it from the messaging.

>>ptx+a5
Agreed. And if BP really wants to change this, he needs to focus on Free Software as a starting point, not Open Source. He complains about RedHat/IBM circumventing the GPL but completely missing the fact that the "more permissive" open source licenses actually condone such behavior. They would even allow IBM to not provide source to their own customers, nevermind prohibiting redistribution.

IMHO the biggest threat to Free Software is the proliferation of open source software. And so the biggest threat to all the open source users/lovers is their own lack of a meaningful philosophy on licensing.

>>phkahl+th
> IMHO the biggest threat to Free Software is the proliferation of open source software.

I'm sure you know this, but to be clear for readers: almost all free software licenses are also open source licenses and vice versa.

The canonical examples are things like the BSD licenses.

See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatible...

> This is the original BSD license, modified by removal of the advertising clause. It is a lax, permissive non-copyleft free software license, compatible with the GNU GPL.

I think it would be clearer to say that the greatest threat to free software is the proliferation of non-copyleft free software which can be closed down if a company so wishes.

>>kaashi+YO1
> the greatest threat to free software is the proliferation of non-copyleft free software which can be closed down if a company so wishes.

That's BS. First of all, companies have closed down GPL projects, because founding companies require copyright assignments on contributions.

Even the FSF does it, with the purpose of being able to change software to newer versions of the GPL, or to be able to sue for copyright infringement. And in the US at least, it's better if one entity is the copyright owner. But the issue remains thay the FSF could turn most of its GNU software proprietary.

The other reason for why it's BS is that it doesn't actually match reality. See LLVM vs GCC.

The biggest danger is companies releasing software with source-available, under proprietary licenses, using the Free Software / Open Source label for marketing purposes, diluting the meaning, which is otherwise well defined.

Like for example MongoDB and Elasticsearch, which grew due to being FOSS, then switched. And the license doesn't matter if the company has the right to switch, given they own the copyright.

I also predict this message will get "But Amazon" replies. Well, that's what FOSS is. Yes, it does grant Amazon the right to make money off your work. If you don't like it, then don't build FOSS, only to pull a bait and switch. FOSS is a terrible business model, because once a project is FOSS, it becomes part of the commons, and that's by design.