this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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I agree with parts about entitlement. The expectation of support and treatment of open source software as if it was proprietary is a real problem.
But, the authour makes a similar mistake - they conflate open source software with source-available (proprietary) software. As an example, I strongly disagree with this part:
If you replace it with this version, I am happy:
I think it's really important that we keep a clear delineation between free/open source software on one side, and source-available (proprietary software) on the other.
A lot of companies are trying to co-opt and blur the meaning of the term so they can say "seeing the source was always the point, none of the other freedoms mattered", in order to sell you proprietary licenses.
Open source gives you the right to take, modify and redistribute it. Source available does not. And that's ok, just please don't blur the terms together.
Likewise, this is definitionally untrue. The whole purpose of FOSS is to give you the four freedoms.
I once had an argument in another community on here about something very similar. And they told me I was wrong. The mods deleted my posts.
I posted the links and the definition/requirements for FOSS as compared to just open source.
They kept telling me i was talking about open source and not libre.
The links and definitions and requirements I posted:
From Richard Stallman, from the site whose creators developed the rules and requirements for FOSS, GNU.org, and from the itsFOSS site which, indeed, references and links to the first 2.
The definitions also explicitly state the difference and uniqueness of each and compares them to the nonstandard open source (source available) labels.
I unjoined that community and found a less ignorant one.
The mods are definitely wrong, and they shouldn't be deleting posts here. But you could also be wrong, I don't have the original posts to go off of, but I do have this one.
FOSS is not the same as Free Software, it's a combination of Free Software and Open Source software, meaning it applies to both. In long form, it's Free and Open Source Software, meaning it applies to things applying to one or the other, and not necessarily both.
If you mean Free Software (i.e. the FSF/GNU definition), then use that term. If you mean Open Source (i.e. the OSI definition), then use that term. If you're not sure which you mean, but you know you mean one of the two, use the term FOSS. If you just mean the source is available but it doesn't necessarily fit the the Free Software or Open Source definitions, use the term "source available" and leave it at that.
Most FOSS licenses are both Free and Open Source (i.e. they meet the definition of both), but not all. Many Open Source licenses are incompatible w/ Free Software licenses, for example the Apache 2.0 license is incompatible with the (L)GPL < v3 in some cases.
In general:
Go to gnu.org
I linked GNU's definition of Free Software already.