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Terminology

An old and reliable debate trick is to chose the terms. Prime example: “pro-life”; if you disagree you must be either “anti-life” or “pro-death”, right? Chosing a nice fat loaded term attempts to win the debate before it has even started. It’s a good strategy, because it is effective.

If you want to control the debate, it is important to try to frame it in terms of your choosing.

“Open Source”

I want to stress once again that originally back in 1998, the term “Open Source” was intended as a drop-in replacement for the term “Free Software”. I suggest you read that link because it makes 3 beautiful points:

1. The problem was “with the term ‘free software’, itself, not the concept”.
2. It was done in “pragmatic interest”
3. RMS “initially flirted” with the idea, but came to reject the term.

As time has passed and we look back I think it is very telling how things have played out.

The concepts are different

It’s clear today that the concept of “Free Software” and the concept of “Open Source” are now quite different. To an ever growing degree, I see a focus on the literal meaning of “Open Source” that approaches fetishization.

The basic difference is that for “Free Software” the important point is “Free”. Open-ness of the source is therefore necessary but not sufficient.

Contrast that with “Open Source”, where (it seems) the only thing that matters is the source is under an OSI-approved license and if there are all sorts of Freedom-limiting non-license conditions, well that’s just fine and dandy.

The problem with patents, “covenants”, trademarks and so forth is they represent possible “end-runs” around the intent of the license. Licenses are based on copyright, but we are increasingly seeing other measures than copyright being used to restrict the use, modification and distribution of so-called “Open Source” code.

It is my position that copyright license alone is not sufficient to insure Open Source. (Of course by extension, the same applies to Free Software, something that the GPLv3 recognizes).

The altar of pragmatism

Variations of this abound as the most popular go-to defense when Free Software requirements become inconvenient: “the only thing that matters is that it works”, “users don’t care about Freedom”, and so forth.

An exclusive focus on pragmatism misses the point, because it boils down to giving up the long term for the short, and it over-values the “easy fix”.

The strange thing here is that Free Software is the pragmatic choice; often so in the short-tearm and always in the long-term. Proprietary Closed Source Software can only be effective as a short-term stopgap measure, because the costs always outweigh the benefits in the long run.

Foresight

The acknowledgment that RMS considered the terminology switch from “Free Software” to “Open Source”, but came to reject it shows remarkable foresight.

It is true indeed that the term “Open Source” may be easier for many business interests to adopt, but it also is much easier to dilute. If “Open Source” was intended to be synonymous with “Free Software”, where does that put “Shared Source”, “Open Core”, “Open Edge” and other such Fauxpen Source pretenders?

 I see a fundamental ironic difference between the way RMS considers things and they way his most vocal detractors consider things. RMS sees that user freedom represents a challenge to corporate interests, and so most of them will try to find a loop hole or substitute. This is a sad, but realistic understanding. Contrast this with the loudest anti-Free Software proponents who have a wholly unrealistic expectation: that companies will not twist, distort and undermine user freedom at every turn.

The past, The future

To take it back to that original “Open Source” anouncement, I doubt the proponents foresaw the current division between “Free Software” and “Open Source” – but as we know that’s not how things turned out.

As time goes on, I think we will see a growing schism. For financial and control reasons, Free Software is a difficult proposition for many software houses. For community and productivity, quasi-Open Source is very attractive indeed. The further a company can tilt the balance towards Closed and Proprietary while maintaining just enough “Open” sheen the better as far as many companies are concerned.

The problem is that many users and developers still think that “Open Source” is equivalent to “Free Software” without realizing that many companies want to exploit those cases where it is not – indeed some are actively seeking out ways to create more such cases.