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| Photo by Romain Vignes on Unsplash |
We have been discussing free and open-source for some time and recently covered the actual differences between the expressions "free software" and "open source software". Interestingly, not only these terms are pretty common today as we're also seeing others growing including Libre, FOSS and FLOSS. Since there are still lots of misunderstandings about them, let's take some time to understand the similarities and differences between them.
Free Software
The term "free software" was created by Richard Stallman the creator of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. Free in "free software" is not about price, but freedom. Freedom to use and modify the software you use. According to the GNU Project, the four essential freedoms are:
- Freedom 0: freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
- Freedom 1: freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- Freedom 2: freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
- Freedom 3: freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Open-Source
The "open source" term was created by a group of folks who later formed the Open Source Initative (OSI) to distinguish from the more philosophically-focused term "free software." According to OSI's distribution terms, open-source software must comply with the following ten criterias:
- Free redistribution
- Access to the source code
- Derived Works
- Integrity of The Author's Source Code
- No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
- No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
- Distribution of License
- License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
- License Must Not Restrict Other Software
- License Must Be Technology-Neutral
Libre
Due to the ambiguity of the word free in the English language meaning both "for free" and "freedom", libre (in French, "free" as in freedom ) was chosen due to its equivalency to freedom. Today Libre is frequently (and correctly) used as a synonym/alternative for "free" as per Stallman's original
definition Stallman's original definition of "free software" being about freedom, not price.
FOSS
FOSS is equivalent to free + open source software. If you understand they're not equivalent, certainly you agree that FOSS indeed goes beyond "free" and "open" capturing Stallman's original vision of freedom vision with OSI's more commercially-inclined vision of the with open source.
FLOSS
FLOSS goes even further by adding the L for Libre. As seen, libre is equal to "free" as in freedom so it adds just a little bit to the confusion, doesn't it? Anyhow, FLOSS is also a valid term these days and commonly used and a synonym for FLOSS.
Conclusion
On this post we reviewed the differences between Free Software, Open-Source, Libre, FOSS and FLOSS. We hope it helps!References
- Open-source License (Wikipedia)
- Comparison of free and open-source software licences (Wikipedia)
- Free Software Foundation’s License List
- Open Source Initiative’s Licenses & Standards
- Open Source Initiative
- GNU - License List
- GNU - Licenses and Comments about them
- GNU - How to choose a license for your own work
- GNU - Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software
- FSF Licensing & Compliance Team
- Tech Rights - Key Parts from a talk from Bruce Perens
