Alternative terms for free software

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From the early 90s onward, alternative terms for free software have come into common use, with much debate in the free software community. The term "free software" was coined by Richard Stallman in 1983 when he launched the free software movement. Records of published version of its definition can be found dating back to February 1986.[1] The definition can be summarised as software which the user can use for any purpose, study the source code of, adapt to their needs, and redistribute - modified or unmodified. To avoid the ambiguity of the English word "free" (free as in beer versus free as in speech), and to avoid talking about the impact on freedom of non-free software, people have suggested alternative names.

"Open-source software", "Software Libre", "FLOSS" (Free/Libre/Open-Source Software), and "FOSS" (Free and Open Source Software) are the most common alternative terms.[2] The most popular alternative has been "open-source software".[2]

Users of each of these terms share almost identical license criteria and development practices, but differ, according to Richard Stallman, in the respective philosophical values. Some people use "libre" (as in free speech) or "gratis" (as in free beer) to avoid the ambiguity of the word "free". However, these terms are mostly used within the free software movement and are slowly spreading. Stallman endorses the term FLOSS to refer to "open source" and "free software" without necessarily choosing between the two camps, though he has criticized the term FOSS as Free/Open seems to imply free-of-charge, while Free/Libre makes it clear the reference is to freedom. However, he asks people to consider supporting the "free software" camp.[3]

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"Open-source software" was proposed in 1998 as "a replacement label"[4] for "free software". Later that year, Open Source Initiative was founded to promote the term as part of "a marketing program for free software".[5]

The term "open source software" was picked during a strategy session held in Palo Alto. Those present included Todd Anderson, Larry Augustin, Jon Hall, Sam Ockman, Christine Peterson, and Eric S. Raymond. The session was arranged in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator (as Mozilla). It aimed to ease business adoption of free software by getting rid of the zero-cost ambiguity, and to "avoid the political connotations of 'free software'".[6] [7] (For others, the "political connotations" are a reason to stay with the term "free software".)[8]

"Libre software" was first used publicly in 2000, by the European Commission.[9] The word "libre", borrowed from the Spanish and French languages, means having liberty. This avoids the freedom/cost ambiguity of the word "free".

"FLOSS" was used in 2001 as a project acronym by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh as an acronym for Free/Libre/Open-Source Software. Later that year, the European Commission (EC) used the phrase when they funded a study on the topic.[10] "FOSS" has since been used by others with the same meaning. The term FOSS was first formally introduced in the document, Use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense.

Unlike "libre software", which aimed to solve the ambiguity problem, "FLOSS" aimed to avoid taking sides in the debate over whether it was better to say "free software" or to say "open-source software". The L for "libre" was included in the hope that it would clarify that the word "free" referred to freedom, not price.

Proponents of the term point out that parts of the FLOSS acronym can be translated into other European languages, with for example the "F" representing free (English) or frei (German), and the "L" representing libre (Spanish or French), livre (Portuguese), or libero (Italian). However, this term is not often used in official, non-English, documents, since the words in these languages for "free as in freedom" do not have the ambiguity problem of English's "free".

By the end of 2004, the FLOSS acronym had been used in official English documents issued by South Africa [11], Spain[12], and Brazil.[13]

At roughly the time the article introducing "FOSS" was being written, the similar term "F/OSS" appeared on a Usenet newsgroup dedicated to Amiga computer games .[14] Another abbreviation is OSS/FS, although this hasn't seen much usage outside of the documents of David A. Wheeler.[15]

Richard Stallman has suggested that the term "unfettered software" would be an appropriate, non-ambiguous replacement, but that he would not push for it because there was too much momentum, and too much effort, behind the term "free software".

The free software community in India sometimes uses the term "Swatantra software" since the term "Swatantra" means freedom in Sanskrit, which is the ancestor of all Indo-European Languages of India, including Hindi, despite English being the lingua franca.

In The Philippines, "malayang software" is sometimes used. The word "libre" exists in the Filipino language, and it came from the Spanish language, but has acquired the same ambiguity of the English word "free".[16]

None of these terms, or the term "free software" itself, have been trademarked. Bruce Perens of OSI, attempted to register "open source" as a service mark for OSI in the United States of America, but that attempt failed to meet the relevant trademark standards. OSI claims a trademark on "OSI Certified", and applied for trademark registration, but did not complete the paperwork. The United States Patent and Trademark Office labels it as "abandoned".[17]

While the term "free software" is associated with FSF's definition, and the term "open-source software" is associated with OSI's definition, the other terms have not been claimed by any group in particular. This, however, has not led to confusion since the definitions published by FSF and OSI are practically the same.

All of the terms mentioned here can be used interchangeably, the choice of which to use is mostly political (wanting to support a certain group) or practical (thinking that one term is the clearest).

The choice of term has little or no impact on which licences are valid. The vast majority of software referred to by these terms is distributed under a small set of licences, all of which are unambiguously accepted by the various de facto and de jure guardians of each of these terms. 50-70% of this software is under the GNU General Public License, and most of the rest is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, the BSD Licence, the Mozilla Public License, the MIT Licence, and the Apache License, each with a share of between 2% and 10%.[18]

Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative both publish lists of licences that they accept as complying with their definitions of free software and open-source software respectively.

Apart from these two organisations, the Debian project is seen by some to provide useful advice on whether particular licences comply with their Debian Free Software Guidelines. Debian doesn't publish a list of "approved" licences, but its judgements can be tracked by checking what licences are used by software they have allowed into their distribution.[19]

There is also a class of software that is covered by the names discussed in this article, but which doesn't have a licence: software for which the source code is in the public domain. The use of such source code, and therefore the executable version, is not restricted by copyright and therefore does not need a free software licence to make it free software.

 Free software Portal

  1. ^ GNU's Bulletin, Volume 1 Number 1, page 8.
  2. ^ a b What do you think we should call free software?. Free Software Magazine.
  3. ^ Why “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software. Free Software Foundation.
  4. ^ Eric Raymond. Goodbye, "free software"; hello, "open source". “we have a problem with the term "free software" ... we came up with a replacement label we all liked: "open source".”
  5. ^ Frequently Asked Questions. Open Source Initiative. “How is "open source" related to "free software"? The Open Source Initiative is a marketing program for free software.”
  6. ^ Transcript of Richard Stallman at the 5th international GPLv3 conference. “The term "open source" was coined to avoid ever mentioning ethical issues. Specifically the ethical issues which are the centre of the Free Software movement.”
  7. ^ Goodbye, "free software"; hello, "open source". “The problem with it is twofold. First, ... the term "free" is very ambiguous ... Second, the term makes a lot of corporate types nervous.”
  8. ^ Announcement: "Free software" instead of "open source"!. Libervis. “Changing the slogan from "open source community node" to "free software community node". Why? Because YOU should know it's all about freedom and being free. The term "open source" seems to hide that meaning.”
  9. ^ European Working Group on Libre Software.
  10. ^ Free/Libre and Open Source Software: Survey and Study.
  11. ^ Free/Libre and Open Source Software and Open Standards in South Africa: A Critical Issue for Addressing the Digital Divide. National Advisory Council on Innovation.
  12. ^ FLOSS deployment in Extremadura, Spain.
  13. ^ Relatório da ONU aponta o Software Livre (FLOSS) como melhor.
  14. ^ using m$ products is supporting them:(.
  15. ^ Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS) References.
  16. ^ Re: Free Software, some thoughts. “My suspicion is that if RMS were Filipino, he would have used Malayang Software to avoid the confusion regarding economics v. liberty.”
  17. ^ Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS). “Word Mark: OSI CERTIFIED ... Goods and Services: (ABANDONED) IC A . US A . G & S: software licensed under open source licenses. ... Serial Number: 76020694 ... Owner: (APPLICANT) Open Source Initiative ... Live/Dead Indicator: DEAD”
  18. ^ Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else..
  19. ^ License information. Debian.
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