Talk:Alternative terms for free software

Aims of this page
This page aims to be a consolidated page for, you guess it, alternative terms for free software. Current pages for such terms are fairly thin, and go through phases of being biased. This indicates they don't have a significant number of editors caring for them. They also contain a lot of duplicate effort - either in defining free software, or in mentioning eachother, or in mentioning the reason for inventing alternatives to "free".

When I've finished combining the information from those pages, I will suggest merging libre software, FLOSS, and FOSS into this article (by means of redirecting, of course). Ideally, open source software should also be merged into this, but if the maintainers of that page want to continue as a seperate page, that's what'll happen. Help appreciated. Gronky 16:10, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


 * This is ridiculous, it's just a duplicate of information already available on other pages and a thinly veiled attempt to push a POV against the term "open source."  It's already been decided there will be no merger, stop trying these deceptive attempts to get around that.  And POV in articles is not a reason to create a new one, especially not a new POV'ed one.  Nathan J. Yoder 16:13, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


 * There seems to be a mistake, you're accusing me of things I haven't said. I haven't accused anyone or any article of POV.  I've invited people to come and help this article, and in general more eyeballs=less POV (which would foil any plans to "push" anything "against the term 'open source'").  I'm not aware of a previous rejected merger attempt (note that I'm not doubting it happened) can you point me to it? Thanks. Gronky 16:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


 * You specifically said 'bias', which is another word for POV, don't play games. You can't just merge articles unilaterally.  And "more eyeballs = less POV" is dubious, as attracting large numbers of editors can actually lead people who are like minded pushing a POV in full force.  The merger tag was removed from the open source software page whens someone tried merging it with open source, so I seriously doubt anyone has agreed to merge it here. Nathan J. Yoder


 * Ah. So there was not a similar merge suggested and rejected.  Someone tried to merge the "open source" article, you say.  Look, I have not suggested merging open source or open source software.  I have suggested moving the other articles, and if the maintainers of the "open source software" article want to merge in too - that's ok, and if they don't, that's ok too.  (as I said above)  Also, I've suggested doing nothing unilaterally.  I've started this page, I will continue to improve it (if it's not deleted), and I will suggest merging the relevent articles when this page is ready (assuming it gets to that point, which I expect it will). Gronky 17:09, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


 * The obvious implication of that rejected merge is that they're not going to merge with this one. If they won't even merge with open source, what makes you think they'd merge with this article? Nathan J. Yoder 17:18, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I find it hard to follow you. What was the merge you are talking about?  Who won't merge with open source?  And what has open source got to do with my suggestions?  Did someone propose merging open source software into open source, and this was rejected - is that what you're saying happened?  (If you say it happened, I'll believe you, but please clarify)


 * If that's what you are saying, then I don't see the conflict or connection between that merge and this page. Not only have I not commented on that merge, but I have not made any suggestions regarding the open source page.  My aims/suggestions/proposals have been stated above. Gronky 17:52, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Improving this article
Additions to this list are welcome.

The contents of the "timeline" section should be kept as thin as possible. Put another way, information should be inserted by topic rather than by term. For example: "FLOSS" can be translated into other languages. This information should be in a section about the use of these terms in non-English languages, or about the political correctness of these terms. Gronky 22:24, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

There seems to be a need for a term to describe software whose source code is published, but which is neither "open source" (in the usual sense) nor free. Such software does exist. The copyright owner publishes the software and also publishes its source code, for sale, with a license that (unlike open source) does not allow redistribution of the source code. An example of this is "C/Database Toolchest", an indexing library published by Mix Software. Its license specifies that "The Licensee may use the Software to produce and distribute applications in executable form only..." (see http://www.mixsoftware.com). If a term for such software exists, it would be useful to make a reference to it. If no such term exists, maybe "published-source software" would serve. -- The term "source-available software" seems to be used with that meaning.

Overlap with free software?
I've merged much of the useful material (of which, there was quite a bit) in this article to its main article, free software. (Although, this page wasn't linked to by the latter free software article, until recently, and I've since removed the link). Therefore, this page is probably worth deleting. I'd appreciate if folks could double-check my work to see if there's any more material that should be merged with free software. Then we can move on to proposals to figure out what to do with this page. --65.19.87.53 18:53, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Someone was uncomfortable with all the detail of this page being included in the early sections of free software. I've used the Template:Details at free software to link to this page, and have pared down this page to what doesn't duplicate material at free software. --69.54.6.84 18:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Most of these so called alternative terms define broader concepts.
I already explained some of these problems at the free software portal. --Easyas12c 13:09, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll reply there. Gronky 17:32, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

"Licenses" section
The "Licenses" section was deleted, and then the deletion was reverted. I'm interested in avoiding duplication of the free software and free software licenses articles among other places, and keeping this page limited to explaining these alternative terms. I'd like to know what specifically the section on licenses offers us.

Obviously, if the terms introduced in this article are indeed all alternatives to free software, then we could reproduce a lot of the material at free software by replacing the subject of "free software" with the the phrase "the above terms". I'd qualify this sort of activity as unsustainable. --71.241.131.233 23:26, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The licences section in this article is about how the various terms are linked to various licences, licence criteria, and judges of acceptability. This article is about terminology, and the implications of each term.  As such it is as you say it should be: "explaining these alternative terms".


 * The details and the specific licences should be discussed in free software licences. I'm pressed for time now, but I will come back later and give a better answer and/or partially revert my revert. Gronky 08:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I understand the motivation for the section, linking "terms" with "licenses". Not only does it not accomplish this in its current form, I deleted it because it never would serve such purpose for the reason of subsumption as argued above and because anything the section would try to include would duplicate explanations found in numerous locations, free software, free software licenses, open source vs. free software to name a few.

I'm sorry to hear you're busy, but I'm not going to restore the edits you've overwrote by your revert. It assumes others aren't also busy. --64.223.117.120 06:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I expected to be able to come back sooner, but that didn't happen. I'll try make time later this week. Gronky 19:28, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

The link to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is dead. -rayluT 20:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

FOSS
I was unaware of this discussion. Some additional points and, I hope, clarifications:


 * The earliest widely distributed version of my MITRE report containing the acronym FOSS in its title was April 5, 2002. That is about two months after the Amiga Games usenet mention of F/OSS mentioned earlier.


 * The subsequent nearly one-year delay in the final publication of the report had far more to do with the Washington Post and other entities getting wind of it than it with the completeness of the report as of early 2002. The unexpected attention necessitated both a very thorough internal review and more exploration of licensing options before the report was publicly released by DISA on their main web site in early 2003. And no, to the best of my knowledge the report is not on the DISA site anymore. However, since it was the very first link on their main web as of roughly mid 2003, I'm pretty sure its presence there could be verified easily by someone with archival web access.


 * I was not tracking Amiga Games usenet groups, and was certainly unaware of the above email or of any other similar emails, nor of the acronym F/OSS from any other forum.


 * Given in particular the slight differnce in their forms, my best surmise is that F/OSS and FOSS were simply parallel acronyms developed at about the same time. There is also a very slight chance that the F/OSS usage does somehow trace back by word-of-mouth (or word-of-email) transmission to my acronym from very early 2002. However, the odds of that drop to zero if F/OSS was in use in December 2001, since I had not yet begun working on the report at that time.


 * Regarding one earlier edit of this web page in which someone suggested that FOSS was actually derived from FLOSS, I had never heard of the FLOSS acronym until an early reviewer of my report tried to persuade me to use it in place of FOSS. I rejected the idea, noting that to me the acronym FLOSS just sounded "too dental"... 8^)


 * Whenever I come up with what are (for me) new phrases or acronyms, I normally perform a due-diligence searching for both unwanted collisions and prior use. For FOSS I don't recall getting any matching hits on my search other than some use of Foss as a family name and other non-acronym uses. As evidence of that I take such searches seriously, when I developed the phrase "software cooperatives" to describe a concept and to serve as the title of a paper I did on the economics behind FOSS, my Google searches uncovered an earlier semantically identical use of the phrase by R. McOrmond. Although I had not relied on his work, and indeed had not even been aware of his existence until my paper was nearly done, I added him as the first reference in my paper to acknowledge his prior creation of both the concept and the phrase.


 * Googling now (05:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)) on MITRE FOSS (no quotes) gives 28,600 raw hits, nearly all of which are about the report in which I use the FOSS in the title. From this it would seem reasonable to say that my report did play a bit of a role in popularizing use of the FOSS acronym... 8^)


 * Based on the number of FOSS hits, I suspect that a Wikipedia article is indeed merited. If nothing else, a short article on this term (and also FLOSS) helps clarify the often baffling relationship between free software and open source software.

Bias/POV fork?
There is some discussion of merging Free and Open Source Software and possibly Free/Libre/Open-Source Software to this page. However, this particular title seems biased toward "free software" rather than "open source software" (this is not, after all, "Alternative terms for open source software"). This is a bit ironic, considering both F/OSS and FLOSS were somewhat intended to take the middle ground. Is there a way we can combine all three articles into a NPOV one? Is there some better title for this article & could the way that it is framed be improved? --Karnesky 03:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd suggest Terms for free or open source software with redirects from either choice. It's not ideal but it's the only title that avoids taking sides. Using "or" makes it obvious that we're not proposing a new term, just listing the two main ones. --200.6.242.106 22:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm in favor of this as well, it's clear that much of the opposition to this page has come from its' perceived "Free Software" slant. It's important that the Encyclopedia help people to understand that these are two different concepts and movements with different goals and stakeholders, a lot of overlap, and that it *IS* confusing, but all true. ;) Justizin (talk) 19:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

libre software
The term "libre software" goes back far before 2000. It was proposed on the gnu.misc.discuss mailing list/newsgroup back in the mid-to-late 1990s. It never caught on broadly, but it's had its advocates since those days (including me). Google groups might have those references somewhere in their newsgroup archives, if someone wanted a tiny research project. Xtifr 20:41, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This might help: Quo vadis, libre software? by Jesús M. González-Barahona - Kim Tucker (talk) 12:08, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Freedom software
If it's "free as in freedom," why not call it freedom software? 165.230.129.135 17:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Take it up with RMS, the Encyclopedia is no place to discuss the merits of the subject matter itself. It's not called "Freedom Software". ;)

Justizin (talk) 19:00, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggested Names Section
The "Suggested names" section badly needs cleanup (and some attention to WP:VERIFY) This sentence particularly seems suspect (emphasis added): "Stallman endorses the terms Free/Libre/Open-Source Software ('FLOSS') and Free and Open Source Software ('F/OSS') to refer to 'open source' and 'free software' respectively, without necessarily choosing between or dividing the two camps, but he asks people to consider supporting the 'free software' camp."

The use of "respectively" makes this claim that Stallman endorses "FLOSS" to refer to "open source" software and "F/OSS" to refer to "free software". It seems more likely that the intent here is to state that Stallman endorses the use of either "FLOSS" or "F/OSS" to refer to the category which includes both "free software" and "open source software". Certainly, that makes more sense with the part of the sentence following "respectively". Cmdicely 17:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the above original wording is misleading. Justizin (talk) 19:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggested merge in of FLOSS
There was a suggestion on the Talk page of the FLOSS article that FLOSS be merged into this article. Gronky 11:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Done. There was only one paragraph of non-duplicate content, so I moved it here.  I moved the external links that are about software to the free software article, and I moved the external links about events to the free software community article.  I also did a bit of a review of this article and removed some duplicate content. Gronky 14:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Libre also = gratis in French? (According to Wiktionary)
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Ffr.wiktionary.org%2Fwiki%2Flibre&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

ie. One valid synonym of "libre" is "gratuit" which means "gratis".

ie. It seems to have the exact same problem as the English word "free".

--irrevenant [ talk ] 03:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Libre can be a synonym for gratuit only in certain situations. For example, many shops in French speaking countries have a sign outside saying "Entrée libre" - which means that anyone is free to enter, entry is available to everyone.  In that sense, "gratuit" is implied, and so is synonymous.  (Actually, maybe wiktionary is wrong since shops might not charge, but might have a discriminatory entrance policy.)  There is no good English translation for these signs because in English speaking countries, it's taken for granted that anyone can enter a shop - so having a sign indicates there is some strange policy.  It's often translated as "Free Entry", but I think it would be better if they said "C'mon in!", or "Welcome to Pierre's". Gronky 10:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Got a cite for motivations of FOSS and FLOSS?
The article currently says in the intro that not choosing a side between FS and OSS was one of the motivations for coining FOSS and FLOSS - someone has added a "citation needed" tag. Does anyone know of a reference for this claim? I'm sure it's true, but it does need to be backed up. Gronky 17:42, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

2007-03-14: No "citation needed" tags now
I've removed the uncited statement about not wanting to take sides in the FS vs OSS debate being a motivation for the FOSS and FLOSS terms. I'm pretty sure it's true, but I don't have a cite. The good news is that that was the only remaining "citation needed" tag in the article, so the article is now free from such tags, for now. Gronky 13:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Legal ramifications of terms
I strongly object to the identification of FOSS and FLOSS as being equivalent with free software.

The concepts are legally much different and, in fact, the differences are quite significant.

Microsoft has tried to stifle free and open source software, and it is only through strict legal definitions of the terms by the framers of licenses for open source software that collaborative software (able to be shared) will be able to withstand the onslaught of Microsoft.

It is important not to belittle the efforts of Microsoft to legally constrain open source software through language, the weapon of lawyers.


 * Can you point us to any of these legal definitions? I'm not aware of any body that has legal definitions for more than one of these terms. Gronky 17:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

"FOSS links here"
If someone arrives here from clicking a "FOSS" link, MediaWiki automatically displays "(Redirected from FOSS)" just under the title. So the recently added "FOSS links here" statement at the top of the article is redundant, no? Gronky 08:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Licences section
It has been suggested that the licences section be merged into the free software and free software licences articles. Looking at the section, I can see that it doesn't clearly related to the terms, so I will try to fix this by more clearly linking the information about licence to the terms. Would that fix it? Gronky 08:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Open Source is not an Alternative term for Free Software

 * "Open Source" is not an alternative term for "free software". Free software is necessarily open source according to the definition. Open source software is not necessarily free according to the same definition. See also: Open source definition and Why “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software.
 * This raises the question of whether FOSS and FLOSS stand for "free/libre (software) and (also) open source software" (a collective term covering both) or "free/libre (and therefore) open source software" (which only covers free software)? I suggest the former - if one checks all the relevant licenses when these terms are used.

Hence, we need a separate entry covering both FOSS and FLOSS. Kctucker 07:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * On point #1, yes, "open source" was invented specifically to be an alternative term for "free software". Free software has a definition published by FSF, and "open source" has a definition published by OSI which is based on FSF's definition.  There are occasional disagreements over whether a specific licence meets either definition.  As far as I remember, there have been 2 licences which OSI accepted which FSF rejected, and 1 licence which FSF accepted and which OSI rejected.  None of this licences is currently used for anything.  Differences exist because this is a subjective topic.  Even if FSF and OSI used the same name, they would still disagree sometimes over interpretation.  Even if they used the same definition, they would still disagree sometimes over interpretation.  So these rare disagreements don't mean that the two terms have different meanings, they just mean that FSF and OSI are different - and they already have separate articles.


 * On point #2, the answer is that FOSS and FLOSS don't stand for anything. There are no definitions for those terms and there are no groups which claim to be the judges of whether or not something is "FOSS" or "FLOSS".  But, the question is irrelevent because everyone agrees that the GPL, LGPL, revised BSD, Apache, Mozilla, the X11 Licence, the CDDL, the Python licence, and every other licence that matters are both "open source" and "free software", and are thus "FOSS" and "FLOSS" no matter which definition you choose.  So FOSS and FLOSS don't exist as separate entities, neither even exists as a coherent entity - they're just nicknames for the same thing.  Their existence came about because people looked for alternative names for free software - and that's exactly what this article is about.


 * Does that make sense? Does the article need to be improved to make this clearer? --Gronky 10:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Afd: Free and open source software
FYI: Articles_for_deletion/Free_and_open_source_software --Gronky 13:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Result of AfD was Keep
discuss a merger at Talk:Free_and_open_source_software Lentower 01:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Merge
Merging alternative terms for free software into a section titled "alternative terms" in free and open source software. The proposed merge result is this edit.

Merging this was discussed at talk:free and open source software a while back; it's obviously the right thing to do, given that this is basically the same territory approached from a less objective angle. Chris Cunningham (talk) 14:42, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Past discussion on both this talk page and the talk page of the target has been supportive of a merge; sticking it up here in case there are any arguments that have been missed. Chris Cunningham (talk) 11:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * (NOTE: This 2nd paragraph, as seen if you look at the date and time, was added after all the following replies. Its content is disputed but I won't further disrupt the flow of this thread by adding a reply here. --Gronky (talk) 11:16, 18 January 2008 (UTC)) (NOTE-#2: The above top-level post has now been augmented again.  I cannot understand the motivation for editing comments dated as being written yesterday.  For the sake of readability, can we please have discussions in order?  If the section name "merge" causes namespace issues, we could rename this section and make a new "merge" section for the real merge proposal and discussion. --Gronky (talk) 12:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC))


 * Free software and open-source software are sets of software. This article is about the history of a naming issue.  This should not be merged into an article about sets of software.  That's probably why you got no consensus for your proposal there and had to rely on writing an article all by yourself (offline) and just now dumping it only and grabbing as many redirects as you can find (without evening saying what the purpose of your new article is).  Please let the world in on your plans. --Gronky (talk) 15:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The result of the debate was a 4:1 merge with only one opposing vote (yours). The introduction to this article contains the line: "'Open-source software', 'Software Libre', 'FLOSS' (Free/Libre/Open-Source Software), and 'FOSS' (Free and Open Source Software) are common alternative terms." It would be obtuse in the extreme to state that there was no obvious relation between this and the mergee, free and open source software.
 * The statement that I "grabbed as many redirects as I can find" is a flagrant assumption of bad faith. Fixing double redirects after a merge is the duty of users who move/merge pages, and not "grabbing" these would make them broken. Chris Cunningham (talk) 15:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It was a 5:4 decision, as can be seen by anyone: Articles_for_deletion/Free_and_open_source_software, and the conditions requested by those who voted to keep were not kept. They asked to wait and see what would happen, and all they got was 10 weeks of silence. --Gronky (talk) 15:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd suggest that if "see what will happen" is met by "nothing", then the correct approach is "try doing something". Anyway, the rationale was also expressed on this talk page over a year ago, with the same rationale. It still stands. Inaction will not fix this. The merge should go ahead. Chris Cunningham (talk) 15:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * And no one has a say? Or do you plan to tell us what the merge is?  There's still no info about what articles you plan to merge into and redirect to your one-man-show.  Please explain this somewhere before announcing that no one can do anything about it. --Gronky (talk) 16:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Huh? The merged version is here. You reverted one half of it, but failed to revert the other (in fact, you claimed not even to have read it at the time), so that's still the current version. All that remains is to change this page to a redirect to the first section. Chris Cunningham (talk) 16:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You gave no one any time to read it, so you can't complain that they didn't. Your lack of respect for the community process is exactly the problem here.  In the Wikipedia process, you propose something, and let it be discussed.  You decided not to do that and instead just pushed through some changes that you knew well to be controversial.  For me to find time to read it, give me a few days - be fair to others.  Blogs are for monologues, Wikipedia is a community effort. --Gronky (talk) 16:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm happy to give it a few days. These changes are not controversial; the only dissenting vote has been yours, and you're misrepresenting the history of the debate (where merges have been discussed, and stood broadly unopposed, several times over an extended period). Chris Cunningham (talk) 16:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, please write your proposal somewhere so that editors can take a look. If any merges are involved, please add mergeto and mergefrom tags to each article involved, and I suggest a week should be waited after adding the tags. --Gronky (talk) 10:51, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for adding the tags. I guess this means your proposal is simply that this article be merged into the free and open source article.  Can you state that somewhere (to clarify and to save others the work I've had to do)?  Thanks. --Gronky (talk) 12:19, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Now I'm lost. AFAICT, you haven't stated your proposal anywhere.  Editing an old comment from (what became) a thread about procedural failings does not constitute stating your proposal clearly.  If anyone is reading this thread (although I have to note that your idea has attracted zero support), they would not reread the whole thread each time they visit.  They would ignore the first post after they read it a first time.  If your new version of your first post is what your proprosal would be, please make that proposal somewhere clear.  Otherwise, if the complete lack of interest has convinced you that gathering support for this idea is flogging a dead horse, please say so so that we can remove the tags of this half-started proposal. --Gronky (talk) 15:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

(outdenting)

There's nothing wrong with the way it's been proposed. I've referred to supporting arguments and past agreement, and generally complied with any request made upon me. There is previous consensus for a merge on these articles, and the reason for complying with your request for a formal listing was as a gesture of good faith. You have not attempted to form a counterpoint, instead choosing to argue over procedure and obfuscate the results of previous discussion. You've made it clear that you oppose not only the marge but the very existence of the article to which this one shall be merged, which is noted, but yours is a lone voice. Merging is the best thing to do to make the encyclopedia more objective, and to present the subject with a neutral point of view, and while I chose to participate in a formal merge procedure as an act of good faith there is no requirement for this if it's seen to be improving the subject. So please, either make your case or stop disingenuously arguing that I haven't made mine clear enough. Chris Cunningham (talk) 18:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The debate here is a bit vitriolic. I don't see where there has been discussion since the AfD on a merge & I don't really know if there was strong consensus for a merger at that time (some thought it was a good idea, but the closing admin didn't seem to think anything of it except to make a strong suggestion to merge.  Where is the supposed current formal listing/discussion?  Is it supposed to be at the (almost as much dominated by the same two people & almost as acerbic) Talk:Free and open source software?   Can we please make a clean strawpoll & limit comments in the merge/no merge subsection so that it is easier to see what consensus is (keeping protracted comments to a third subsection)?  --Karnesky (talk) 23:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Adding below. I'd rather all discussion on the topic were kept to one page too. Chris Cunningham (talk) 10:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Survey
Alternative terms for free software should be merged into free and open source software. The target article is an objective examination of a broad set of software with similar copyright terms. The current article is a subjective examination which takes the disputed view that all such terms are simply "alternative terms" for the existing "free software" concept. While the various names given to different branches of the subject are worth examining, this is better done in the context of an examination of the whole rather than as a separate article with objectivity issues. --10:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Support

 * Support as nom. All previous discussion points to this being the right call. Were the current article split from free and open source software today, it'd be an obvious POV fork. Chris Cunningham (talk) 10:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Support. I have tried to cleanup this article.  I think that it is better than free and open source software, which is almost a subset of this article.  I suggest that we move the contents of this page over there, as that article has the better name. --Karnesky (talk) 21:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Support. It seem logical to combine the two topics, and semantics should not be allowed to get in the way. --Gavin Collins (talk) 20:15, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Support. We need a more balanced, well-written, terse explanation of the whole FOSS phenomena.  There are way too many articles.  More words, more articles, are not quality. E.g. for almost each article on Open Source Software, there is an equivalent one on Free Software, with each biased toward the partisan view of each camp.  This merge is a step in the Wikipedia direction for this topic area. Lentower (talk) 21:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

 * Oppose The target article's subject matter and scope are unclear. The target article also has practically no content that could be "merged", and has shown no signs of evolution over the past months.  The current article has a well-defined subject matter and it's content is wholly on-topic.  That the term "free software" was in use for 15 years before the appearance of any of these alternative names is simply a fact.  Contradicting this would be misrepresenting history. --Gronky (talk) 12:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose this specific merge proposal, suggest others. I was invited to comment presumably because I participated in Articles for deletion/Free and open source software.  I have had a quick look over the two pages.  I am partial to Gronky's point that this page is historically oriented, and I like that.  However, I am a little concerned that:
 * it may not be kepts up to date;
 * the subject is not sufficiently based on secondary references. See secondary sources, WP:PSTS and WP:N.  I haven't checked the references, but is there actual secondary-source coverage of the subject, especially the words "Alternative terms".  On this question, having not looked through the references, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
 * Looking at the target article, Free and open source software, I am a little shocked at how short it is. Something is funny here.  I then discover that the real content is at Open source software.  The most obvious merge to me would be to merge Free and open source software into Open source software.  I note that there's a half-idea to merge Open source software with Free software.  I didn't find any discussion, and it is not obvious which way the merge is intended, but I'd say that Open source software should remain as the main article.
 * Having looked over these articles, it seems to me that there is easily an excessive use of primary sources. Someone has even noted that there is an excessive use of quotations.  I'll say again, read over WP:PSTS.  Although that policy section has been lengthily disputed regarding its details, I believe that all of these articles violate its intent by a clear margin.  Please look for good secondary sources to form the basis of every article.  Without more, reputable secondary sources, perhaps the merging of all four to Open source software is a good idea.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose: Karnesky asked me to comment, so here goes: this is a tempest in a teapot, and the sooner we stop arguing about it the sooner we can move on to making the articles better. RossPatterson (talk) 23:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Opppose: The summary for this poll is misleading: if the target article was full and complete, merging could be a positive step, but at the moment it is a skeleton and this is the wrong place to begin with consolidation of OSS/FS articles. NicM (talk) 21:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC).
 * Oppose, for reasons already cited. mfc (talk) 17:51, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Other comments

 * This is a large enough topic that it probably justifies a separate article. However, I agree that this article can be cleaned up & made to have less bias.  "Open source," despite being a newer term, is in very common usage & moving this page to "Other terms for free and open source software" might be reasonable.  The text of the article would need to be made similarly agnostic.  I don't think a merge is the best way to clean this up.  --Karnesky (talk) 17:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd support a move as a compromise for now, were that suggested and agreed upon. Chris Cunningham (talk) 17:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Looking over that other page again, I suppose there's little reason to have two articles at this time. --Karnesky (talk) 21:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Do the merge the other way round. Free and open source software currently says nothing, merge it into Alternative terms for free software. Removing some of the general OS/FSS stuff from that article (eg the licenses section) would also be a good step. I don't see that the title being subjective is a bad thing here, these are obviously less-used terms, they aren't the official terms used by the FSF or OSI, and it's better to have them all together than have a dozen tiny artitles. If people really object, a good cleanup and perhaps a better title are a better idea. NicM (talk) 06:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC).
 * It is not obvious to me that "open-source software" is significantly less used than "free software." There does seem to be consensus about keeping most of the info on this page, though. --Karnesky (talk) 13:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That isn't what I meant. The alternative terms listed on this page, which do not include "open source", are less-used. Whether this page should be renamed, or what it should be renamed to, is debatable, but that doesn't mean picking one term and renaming it to that is the way to go. NicM (talk) 17:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC).
 * Er, sorry, it does mention open source in the introduction. Well, maybe that bit should be moved into the open source article? NicM (talk) 17:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * A merge the other way round first requires that you oppose the current proposal. This page was created as a unification of six articles on individual terms.  This merge is a proposal to rename this page back to one of the individual terms it originally unified.  I recommend opposing this. --Gronky (talk) 13:36, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, perhaps I should, but I only really disagree as it is at the moment. I think the summary for this poll is rather misleading. The target article is not "an objective examination of a broad set of software with similar copyright terms"&mdash;how can it be, it is only four tiny paragraphs? If the target ever did become a good, thorough article about FS and OSS (I am a little sceptical about both the title and the idea of merging FS and OSS articles together, but those are seperate issues), then there would be a good argument for merging this, but at the moment that is not so and I do not think we should currently merge this article covering alternative terms into an article named after one alternative term among several. NicM (talk) 17:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC).
 * We hardly need a whole big article about different terms for FS/OSS anyway. A good paragraph or short section in a solid article on the subject would be quite adequate, if such an article could ever be decided upon. NicM (talk) 17:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC).
 * The summary being misleading and the target being a skeleton with no signs of contribution or maintenance is fine grounds for opposing this merge, IMO. The way I see it, on a very divided topic, this is one of the only parts that has managed to be unified, and this rename proposal (which is what it really is), will undo this progress by blurring the topic and scope. --Gronky (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't see how merging the other way around and then giving this article "a good cleanup and perhaps a better title" is, in fact, a different proposal. A rename would be opposed on exactly the same grounds as this merge anyway, so it would end up getting stalled halfway and hence lending unwarranted credibility to the status quo. Chris Cunningham (talk) 14:16, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The point is that at the moment we should have a page like this. Whether it should be called "alternative terms for free software", "other terms for open source", or something else appropriate is a different question. What I don't think should happen is that one minority term ("free and open source software") is chosen, and this page merged into it. That page should be merged into this. As an aside, this page could do with a good cleanup and probably a better title, so long as the title reflects its content. NicM (talk) 17:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC).
 * "Free and open source software" isn't a title in itself, it's a union. It could just as well be "free or open source software". By picking a term which isn't obviously a union, we confer the union status upon the chosen title. "Open source software" might be a good title, but we are never going to get the pro-FSF contingent on WP to agree to the statement that free software is a subset of open source software. "free software" is right out because there are OSI-approved licences such as the APSL which the FSF considers non-free. So the best available compromise is the suggested union. Chris Cunningham (talk) 17:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That may be the case, but how does that make it any more relevent to this article? A union article may be a good idea, but why should the first step be merging this one? Surely Free software and Open source software are much better starting points. Get the article built, and I will support merging this one as a section. NicM (talk) 20:58, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The current article is a union (of 6 previous articles). The stub you made seems to only talk about one term (FOSS), or maybe it's about the two terms FS and OSS, or... well, it's not clear what it would be about.  Nobody can judge because there's no content, just an unclear name and some really basic sentences. --Gronky (talk) 17:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This article misrepresents its scope, because "open source software" is not an "alternative term" for "free software" in the case of software released under the APSL; the FSF doesn't consider such software to be free software at all. "FOSS" is not "one term", it's a union of all terms relating to this kind of software. And the FOSS article would be better if people didn't, say, AfD it, or oppose any merges to it, or discourage editors from finding it by removing links to it. Chris Cunningham (talk) 18:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Wrong on both counts. First, APSL is FSF approved.  And second, from the launch of "open source", Eric Raymond says it's a "replacement label" for free software.  With that cleared up, do you still want to proceed with this merge? --Gronky (talk) 07:56, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I meant APSL 1, but I could quite easily pick another OSI-approved license which doesn't appear on the FSF's list (the Microsoft ones, for instance). What Eric Raymond said in 1998 does not match the reality of 2008. I'm still 100% sure about this merge. Chris Cunningham (talk) 08:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * APSL 1 isn't used for any software in 2008. Apple released it, RMS complained, Apple worked with RMS on fixing the problems, and APSL 2 was released.  Happy ending, no rift.  Af for the MS licences, they haven't been evaluated by FSF.  FSF's list isn't exhaustive.  FSFE have said they seem to indeed be free software licences. So your facts are wrong again.  Please stop this.--Gronky (talk) 08:20, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not terribly sure I want to get involved in this, but I don't think this endless he-said-she-said sniping is terribly constructive. Couldn't you guys each come up with a proposal for what you think the FS/OSS history/philosophy coverage on WP should look like and we see where it goes from there? Personally, I think there are way too many articles and it should all be consolidated into three or four good FAs, but I don't really have that much knowledge of the subject itself or how it could be broken up. NicM (talk) 21:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd rather consolidate first and ask questions later, wherever practical. Hence the original bold merge of this article. I think we'll get much more rapid and practical commentary by acting rather than endlessly discussing, but I can't force people to agree with me. SO it's frustrating all round, but I truly don't want to be warring with people over this. Gronky and I work cooperatively on any number of articles in the free software domain, we just get stuck on the odd point. Chris Cunningham (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, perhaps being bold is a good idea, but is this really the place to start? Personally I think there are far too many FS/OSS articles - a combined article would be great, even if I don't like the title - but surely it should have a good base before you start merging stuff like this? The AFD on free and open source software had several notes about ongoing discussion and merge plans, but nothing seemed to come of them. NicM (talk) 22:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * What about copying rather than merging into free and open source software? We can always delete the old articles once it is good enough. NicM (talk) 22:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Page move
Some of those who oppose a merge (SmokeyJoe and NicM in particular) have expressed a similar concern about the name of this article as those who support a merge. Since there is no consensus on a merge, is there something else we can just call this article? ---Karnesky (talk) 17:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

To avoid talk of liberty
The intro says that alternative terms were sought so as to avoid the cost/liberty ambiguity. That's true, but it's only one reason. OSI and RMS also agree there was a second reason: businesses didn't want computer users to start evaluating software in terms of freedom; they wanted to present free software as a technical issue, not a social issue.

OSI say they wanted to "dump the moralizing ... [and] sell the idea strictly on the same pragmatic, business-case grounds" (cut out the moral aspect, cut out anything that isn't a business-case).

Stallman also says it was to "freedom and community, on human rights for software users. "Open source" was founded in 1998 as a way to stop talking about those things"

I'll re-add this point and add those references. --Gronky (talk) 19:52, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Note, though, that it was an ATTITUDE that what would later become the OSI spoke against: "dump the moralizing and confrontational attitude." No where in that link does it discuss liberty. --Karnesky (talk) 20:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * [replacing my original reply] Ok, I see you're point. OSI indeed do not specify "liberty", so you're right that WP cannot say that.  All WP can say is that OSI rejected of the previous advocacy (FSF's), that they decided to advocate free software strictly on business-case arguments, that they didn't advocate that computer users should be free, and that RMS says their goal was to surpress talk of liberty.  I'll try to come up with a concise wording for that (tomorrow). --Gronky (talk) 20:19, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

dates
I've a hard time believing that the term Libre Software wasn't used until as late as 2000. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sunnan (talk • contribs) 13:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Article Libre traces it back to at least 1995 via http://archive.is/aRfD - Kim Tucker (talk) 10:18, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Licence vs. lincense
Pardon my intrusion on the deep existential FAIF debate, but it seems to me that this article uses the spelling 'licence', while articles linked use the 'license' spelling.

As far as I can tell, all but one of the links containing the word 'licence' redirect to the same article with the word spelled 'license'. It seems to me that, in this case, it may be more consistent to link to the "actual names" of the articles instead of linking to something that redirects them, and possibly use the 'license' spelling if this will look more consistent? --Evil oatmeal (talk) 00:36, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I know that this topic has come up before, but I can't remember which article to which it was related. Anyway, I believe that in most (or all) English-speaking countries except the US, license is used as a verb while licence is used as a noun.  I'll see if I can find the previous discussion and/or some additional information about that.  Scratch that; I just found Manual_of_Style_(spelling) which confirms my supposition.
 * Coming from the US, I've never really seen licence used much at all, and it does look a bit weird, but I guess that's what us Americans get for not inventing our own language. --Hamitr (talk) 01:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok then! Just wanted to make a note of it, and that most of the links are spelled one way, but in fact get redirected to the other spelling of the word. I'm not going to do anything further about it, as I'm sure the article is 'busy' enough without me interfering! Evil oatmeal (talk) 16:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Who coined the term Open source?
The OSI credits Chris Peterson for coining the term "Open source" back in 1998, but Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, had been using the "Open source" label all the way back in 1984. At http://www.archive.org/details/UNIX1985 you can hear them use the term "open source code" when discussing Berkley Unix 4.2, at approximately 13 minutes and 50 seconds into the show. This show was published in January of 1985. NJB (talk) 22:25, 10 February 2012 (UTC) Other examples which predate Christine Peterson's claims include Caldera's press release for OpenDOS https://web.archive.org/web/19961220124213/http://caldera.com:80/news/pr002.html and this USENET post from 1993. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32/WoBvPB0U9Co/wXfpq5nEJTYJ drinkypoo (talk) 16:04, 23 February 2019 (PST)

Keeping a Neutral POV
the name "Alternative terms for free software" seems to advocate usage of "free software" above the other terms by claiming that they are just that: alternative. In addition, some of the sources also appear to be heavily biased in FSF's favor (e.x. one of them was titled "Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else.") Requesting someone review the article for neutrality. Myconix (talk) 02:04, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. I would propose "Terms for Free and open source software" which is already the ecosystem's and even the FSF accepted compromise. Shaddim (talk) 21:46, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

This inactive discussion about such a minor issue doesn't deserve the reader being warned against a supposed lack of neutrality of article. I propose removing the neutrality tag while the title is being discussed.--Pere prlpz (talk) 22:07, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I've removed said template. Elliot321 (talk &#124; contribs) 12:39, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

The FLOSS section
I think the expansion of the FLOSS acronym should read "Free/Libre and Open Source Software". The "and" is important because it implies both camps (inclusive of 'free software' and 'open source software' to avoid arguments between the two camps). This was part of the rationale for coining the term FLOSS. Leaving out the 'and' implies they are one and the same (not the intention of the acronym FLOSS) --K (talk) 22:32, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Libreware
Over the years, at least since 2001 (in this thread) if not before, the term "libreware" has cropped up from time to time, and (imo) is worthy of mention in this article. - K (talk) 11:05, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Duplication of longstanding examples
Some editors are pushing the duplication of longstanding examples of alternative terms for free software: I see that this affects the WP:NPOV of the article: so I reverted such edit. Fsfolks (talk) 13:14, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * How, specifically, do you believe the material violates WP:NPOV? —Psychonaut (talk) 12:39, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

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Conflation
This page gives the impression that "alternative terms" for free software include related yet incompatible ideas like open-source. This is a misleading conflation of ideas. 185.217.158.63 (talk) 00:00, 27 March 2022 (UTC)