Alternative terms for free software
Encyclopedia
Alternative terms for free software have been a controversial issue among free software
users from the late 1990s onwards. Coined in 1983 by Richard Stallman
, "free software" is used to describe software which can be used, modified, and redistributed with little or no restriction. These freedoms are formally described in The Free Software Definition
, first published in February 1986.
Alternatives for "free software" were sought for marketing purposes and because of a perceived "moralising and confrontational" attitude that had been associated with the term. In addition, the "available at no cost" ambiguity of the word "free" was seen as discouraging business adoption. In a 1998 strategy session in California
, "open source software" was selected by Todd Anderson
, Larry Augustin
, Jon Hall, Sam Ockman, Christine Peterson, and Eric S. Raymond
. Richard Stallman had not been invited. The session was arranged in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator
(as Mozilla
). Those at the meeting described "open source" as a "replacement label" for free software and Open Source Initiative
was soon-after founded by Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens
to promote the term as part of "a marketing program for free software". Stallman and others object to the term "open source software" because it does not make people think of the freedoms that the software in question gives users.
Each of the terms "free software" and "open source software" has fans and critics. Partly because of the failure to adopt one specific term, other terms have been proposed. These include "Software Libre" (or libre software), "FLOSS" (Free/Libre/Open Source Software), and "FOSS" (or F/OSS, Free and Open Source Software
). These terms share almost identical licence criteria and development practices.
was in a posting on 18 March 1998, just a month after the term "open source" itself was coined.
In February 2002, "F/OSS" appeared on a Usenet
newsgroup dedicated to Amiga
computer games
. In early 2002, MITRE
used the term "FOSS" in what would later be their 2003 report Use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense
.
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.
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".
Proponents of the term point out that parts of the FLOSS acronym can be translated into other 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), and so on. 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, Spain, and Brazil.
Richard Stallman endorses the term FLOSS to refer to "open source" and "free software" without necessarily choosing between the two camps, however, he asks people to consider supporting the "free software" camp. 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 word "libre", borrowed from the Spanish
and French
languages, means having liberty. This avoids the freedom/cost ambiguity of the English
word "free".
in India
sometimes uses the term "Swatantra software" since the term "Swatantra" means free 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 cost/freedom ambiguity of the English word "free".
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 of specificity. 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".
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. FSF's and OSI's definitions are worded quite differently but the set of software that they cover is almost identical.
All of the terms are 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).
, and most of the rest is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License
, the BSD licenses
, the Mozilla Public License
, the MIT License
, and the Apache License
, each with a share of between 2% and 10%.
The Free Software Foundation
and the Open Source Initiative
each publish lists of licenses 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 does not publish a list of "approved" licences, but its judgments can be tracked by checking what licences are used by software they have allowed into their distribution. In addition, the Fedora Project
does provide a list of approved licenses (for Fedora) based on approval of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the Open Source Initiative (OSI), and consultation with Red Hat Legal.
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
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
users from the late 1990s onwards. Coined in 1983 by Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
, "free software" is used to describe software which can be used, modified, and redistributed with little or no restriction. These freedoms are formally described in The Free Software Definition
The Free Software Definition
The Free Software Definition, written by Richard Stallman and published by Free Software Foundation , defines free software, as a matter of liberty, not price. The term "free" is used in the sense of "free speech," not of "free beer." The earliest known publication of the definition was in the...
, first published in February 1986.
Alternatives for "free software" were sought for marketing purposes and because of a perceived "moralising and confrontational" attitude that had been associated with the term. In addition, the "available at no cost" ambiguity of the word "free" was seen as discouraging business adoption. In a 1998 strategy session in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, "open source software" was selected by Todd Anderson
Todd Anderson
Todd Anderson was a rugby league footballer of the '90s. He played for the Newcastle Knights in 1990.-External links:*http://www.rugbyleagueproject.org/players/Todd_Anderson/summary.html...
, Larry Augustin
Larry Augustin
Larry Augustin is CEO of SugarCRM and is a former venture capitalist and the co-founder and former chairman of VA Software, now known as Geeknet. He founded VA Research, the predecessor to that company, in 1993 while a Ph.D...
, Jon Hall, Sam Ockman, Christine Peterson, and Eric S. Raymond
Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...
. Richard Stallman had not been invited. The session was arranged in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator
Netscape Navigator
Netscape Navigator was a proprietary web browser that was popular in the 1990s. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corporation and the dominant web browser in terms of usage share, although by 2002 its usage had almost disappeared...
(as Mozilla
Mozilla
Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....
). Those at the meeting described "open source" as a "replacement label" for free software and Open Source Initiative
Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, prompted by Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product...
was soon-after founded by Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens is a computer programmer and advocate in the open source community. He created the Open Source Definition and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric S...
to promote the term as part of "a marketing program for free software". Stallman and others object to the term "open source software" because it does not make people think of the freedoms that the software in question gives users.
Each of the terms "free software" and "open source software" has fans and critics. Partly because of the failure to adopt one specific term, other terms have been proposed. These include "Software Libre" (or libre software), "FLOSS" (Free/Libre/Open Source Software), and "FOSS" (or F/OSS, Free and Open Source Software
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
). These terms share almost identical licence criteria and development practices.
FOSS and F/OSS
The first known use of the phrase "free open source software" on UsenetUsenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
was in a posting on 18 March 1998, just a month after the term "open source" itself was coined.
In February 2002, "F/OSS" appeared on a Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroup dedicated to Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
computer games
Computer Games
"Computer Games" is a single by New Zealand group, Mi-Sex released in 1979 in Australia and New Zealand and in 1981 throughout Europe. It was the single that launched the band, and was hugely popular, particularly in Australia and New Zealand...
. In early 2002, MITRE
MITRE
The Mitre Corporation is a not-for-profit organization based in Bedford, Massachusetts and McLean, Virginia...
used the term "FOSS" in what would later be their 2003 report Use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense
Use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense
Use of Free and Open-Source Software in the U.S. Department of Defense is a 2003 report by The MITRE Corporation that documented widespread use of and reliance on free software within the United States Department of Defense . The report helped end a debate about whether FOSS should be banned from...
.
FLOSS
"FLOSS" was used in 2001 as a project acronym by Rishab Aiyer GhoshRishab Aiyer Ghosh
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh is an Indian journalist, computer scientist and Open-source software advocate. An Open Source Initiative board member, he is Founding International and Managing Editor of peer-reviewed journal First Monday, and Programme Leader of Free/Libre and Open Source Software at UNU-MERIT...
as an acronym for free/libre/open source software. Later that year, the European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
(EC) used the phrase when they funded a study on the topic.
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".
Proponents of the term point out that parts of the FLOSS acronym can be translated into other 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), and so on. 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, Spain, and Brazil.
Richard Stallman endorses the term FLOSS to refer to "open source" and "free software" without necessarily choosing between the two camps, however, he asks people to consider supporting the "free software" camp. 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".
Software Libre
"Software Libre" was first used publicly in 2000, by the European CommissionEuropean Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
. The word "libre", borrowed from the Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
languages, means having liberty. This avoids the freedom/cost ambiguity of the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
word "free".
Non-English terms in anglophone regions
The free software communityFree software community
The free-software community is an informal term that refers to the users and developers of free software as well as supporters of the free-software movement. The movement is sometimes referred to as the open-source software community or a subset thereof...
in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
sometimes uses the term "Swatantra software" since the term "Swatantra" means free in Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, which is the ancestor of all Indo-European Languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
of India, including Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, despite English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
being the lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
.
In The Philippines, "malayang software" is sometimes used. The word "libre" exists in the Filipino language
Filipino language
This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
, and it came from the Spanish language, but has acquired the same cost/freedom ambiguity of the English word "free".
Ownership and attachments
None of these terms, or the term "free software" itself, have been trademarked. Bruce PerensBruce Perens
Bruce Perens is a computer programmer and advocate in the open source community. He created the Open Source Definition and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric S...
of OSI attempted to register "open source" as a service mark
Service mark
A service mark or servicemark is a trademark used in some countries, notably the United States, to identify a service rather than a product. When a service mark is federally registered, the standard registration symbol ® or "Reg U.S. Pat & TM Off" may be used...
for OSI in the United States of America, but that attempt failed to meet the relevant trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
standards of specificity. 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
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
labels it as "abandoned".
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. FSF's and OSI's definitions are worded quite differently but the set of software that they cover is almost identical.
All of the terms are 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).
Licenses
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 LicenseGNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, and most of the rest is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License
GNU Lesser General Public License
The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License...
, the BSD licenses
BSD licenses
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses. The original license was used for the Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix-like operating system after which it is named....
, the Mozilla Public License
Mozilla Public License
The Mozilla Public License is a free and open source software license. Version 1.0 was developed by Mitchell Baker when she worked as a lawyer at Netscape Communications Corporation and version 1.1 at the Mozilla Foundation...
, the MIT License
MIT License
The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms...
, and the Apache License
Apache License
The Apache License is a copyfree free software license authored by the Apache Software Foundation . The Apache License requires preservation of the copyright notice and disclaimer....
, each with a share of between 2% and 10%.
The Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
and the Open Source Initiative
Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, prompted by Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product...
each publish lists of licenses that they accept as complying with their definitions of free software and open source software respectively.
- List of FSF approved software licenses
- List of OSI approved software licenses
Apart from these two organisations, the Debian
Debian
Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
project is seen by some to provide useful advice on whether particular licences comply with their Debian Free Software Guidelines
Debian Free Software Guidelines
The Debian Free Software Guidelines is a set of guidelines that the Debian Project uses to determine whether a software license is a free software license, which in turn is used to determine whether a piece of software can be included in Debian...
. Debian does not publish a list of "approved" licences, but its judgments can be tracked by checking what licences are used by software they have allowed into their distribution. In addition, the Fedora Project
Fedora Project
The Fedora Project is an endeavor sponsored by Red Hat to co-ordinate the development of the Fedora operating system. Founded on September 2003 as a result of a merger between the Red Hat Linux and old Fedora Linux projects...
does provide a list of approved licenses (for Fedora) based on approval of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the Open Source Initiative (OSI), and consultation with Red Hat Legal.
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
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
. 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
Free software licence
A free software licence is a software licence which grants recipients rights to modify and redistribute the software, which would otherwise be prohibited by copyright law. A free software licence grants, to the recipients, freedoms in the form of permissions to modify or distribute copyrighted work...
to make it free software.
See also
- Free software communityFree software communityThe free-software community is an informal term that refers to the users and developers of free software as well as supporters of the free-software movement. The movement is sometimes referred to as the open-source software community or a subset thereof...
- Free software movementFree software movementThe free software movement is a social and political movement with the goal of ensuring software users' four basic freedoms: the freedom to run their software, to study and change their software, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. The alternative terms "software libre", "open...
- GNU/Linux naming controversyGNU/Linux naming controversyThe GNU/Linux naming controversy is a dispute among members of the free and open source software community over how to refer to the computer operating system commonly called Linux....
- History of free softwareHistory of free softwareThis is a timeline-style look at how free and open-source software has evolved and existed from its inception.The phrase "free software" refers to software that is liberally licensed, allowing the end user more freedoms than conventional-software licences. This is not to be confused with software...
- Open source vs. closed sourceOpen source vs. closed sourceOpen source - the source availability model used by free and open source software - and closed source are two approaches to the distribution of software.- Background :Under the closed source model source code is not released to the public...
- Permissive free software licences
- Software warsSoftware warsSoftware wars describes a state where software authors and users argue over which software is best for a purpose and should thus be used by everyone for that task....
External links
- Hancock, Terry. "The Jargon of Freedom: 60 Words and Phrases with Context" Free Software MagazineFree Software MagazineFree Software Magazine is a website which produces a mostly free-content e-zine about free software....
. 2010-20-24 - Berry, D M (2004). The Contestation of Code: A Preliminary Investigation into the Discourse of the Free Software and Open Software Movement, Critical Discourse Studies, Volume 1(1).
- Differences between open source and free software as interpreted by SlackwareSlackwareSlackware is a free and open source Linux-based operating system. It was one of the earliest operating systems to be built on top of the Linux kernel and is the oldest currently being maintained. Slackware was created by Patrick Volkerding of Slackware Linux, Inc. in 1993...
- EU study which, among other things, polled developers about terminology
- FreeOpenSourceSoftware.org Wiki (same as FreeLibreOpenSourceSoftware.org)
- FSF's suggested translations of free software to languages other than English
- John Stanforth, an Open Source proponent, on the differences between the Open Source Initiative and the Free Software Foundation.