[ox-en] Free or Open? (was: Re: Open/Free project lists)
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2006 08:35:00 +0100
Hi Michel and all!
Last week (11 days ago) Michael Bouwens wrote:
Can you define the difference between open and free?
I don't think it makes sense to define a difference between these two
words.
The history is that Free Software was the initial term coined by
Richard M. Stallman and the Free Software Foundation. In 1998 Eric S.
Raymond and Bruce Perens (IIRC) founded the Open Source Initiative.
Open Source was basically meant as a marketing token for Free Software
because business people had difficulties with the term freedom.
Actually this marketing term was a big success and today we see the
term "Open" attached to everything. As with many successful terms
today it tends to mean nothing anymore because everyone attaches it to
his/her personal pet just for the sake of using the successful term.
For instance I guess nobody would have a problem with "Open
Closedness"...
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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