GNU guru Richard Stallman sent me an e-mail the other day complaining that we erred by saying that the Free Software Foundation, of which he's president, promotes open source software. "We have never supported the idea of 'open source' because that idea denies the importance of users' freedom," he writes. Read on for the dizzying semantics behind Richard's argument, and why I think his obsessive attempts at language control are shooting his own software objectives in the foot.

Believe me when I tell you I'm sympathetic to a big part of Stallman's case. I get that he's hung up on how Linux has stolen all the thunder from GNU, and that he must be ticked Linus Torvalds is the face of open source software when he was the guy beating the drums first, and most loudly.

At the same time, it's clear that his inflexibility is wearing. It's hard to swallow that he seems to beat up people who are honestly trying to cover open source -- excuse me, free software -- worse than those who ignore the stuff entirely.

Take Stallman's reaction to Paul McDougall's Dec. 11 story, Free Software Group Sues Cisco For Open Source Violations. The piece explains how the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is litigating because it believes Linksys routers -- Cisco bought Linksys in 2003 -- violate the GNU General Public License, because users can't get access to the source code of software embedded in those routers. Simple enough, right?

However, rather than being glad for the publicity, Stallman is all hung up over semantics. (Note that I'm not saying that Stallman should thank us or other media outlets, just that it's to his advantage that people are reporting on the FSF's lawsuit.) Here's the e-mail he sent me with his complaint:

"Dear Editor,

Paul McDougal's article about the Free Software Foundation's lawsuit against Linksys errs when it says that the FSF 'promotes open source software.'

The Free Software Foundation campaigns for computer users' freedom: specifically, the freedom to use, copy, modify and redistribute software. We developed the GNU operating system (often inaccurately called 'Linux') to make it possible to run computers in freedom. We published the GNU GPL to protect that freedom for all users. Now we have sued Linksys for withholding the source code of its modified GNU system components, which effectively denies users the freedom to change them.

We have never supported the idea of 'open source' because that idea denies the importance of users' freedom. When the article labels our software and licenses as 'open source' instead of 'free software,' it gives readers the wrong idea of our views.

Sincerely,
Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (fsf.org)"

With due respect to Stallman, I get a splitting headache trying to parse the philosophical distinction between "open source" and "free software." Isn't it the deal simply that all this stuff is the "anti-Microsoft"? (To paraphrase a famous man, can't you free and open-source guys all just get along?)

I think that Stallman is so blinded by whatever internecine dispute he's got with the "open source" folks that he can't see that normal people are turned off by this microscopically significant pissing contest.

Lest it seems like I'm overfocused on a simple complaint Stallman sent me, let me assure you that this isn't an isolated incident; he's made a career out of policing the semantics of free software.

I think I can best illustrate that via an excerpt from an FSF piece I wrote for my then-column for ACM Queue magazine in 2004:

From "GNU Tools, Still Relevant?":

If Stallman sometimes seems to be an enigma wrapped inside a software zealot, he takes great pains to set precise parameters for any discussion of FSF. He emphasizes that FSF supports free code, but has nothing to do with open source. To some, this may seem confusing. But open source and GNU are not synonymous. Programs written by the GNU project are indeed "free," and they're covered by the GPL "Copyleft" licensing agreement, which allows them to be redistributed provided that the source code for any changes made by the user doing the redistributing are included. Open source programs do indeed tend to be offered under often strikingly similar terms, but they don't come from the GNU folks, nor do they have the exact same license. Accordingly, open source software can perhaps best be thought of as an offshoot of GNU. According to Stallman, the open source folks are a "different group which was formed in 1998 specifically to reject the idealism of the Free Software Movement that I founded."

With regard to Linux, which is the most successful spawn of FSF, Stallman is in something of a dilemma. On the one hand, Linux would seem to be a powerful case in point for free software. In the public mind, however, Linux is an "open source" project associated with Linus Torvalds, not FSF.

The result is that Stallman may seem to have a case of sour grapes when it comes to Linux, since he spends so much of his time harping on the nomenclature issues that have become a particular sticking point for him. "One common error is calling the whole [Linux] operating system Linux,"(8) he wrote in response to my recent e-mail requesting an interview for this column. "The system is basically GNU; Linux is actually the kernel, one program in the system. When people call the whole system Linux, they give the system's principal developer none of the credit. A related error is the idea that GNU is a collection of tools; GNU is an operating system." (Readers should know that Stallman declined to participate in my interview when I was unable to agree to a lengthy list of definitional ground rules, including referring to Linux as "GNU/Linux" at all times--using Linux only if specifically referring to just the kernel.)

Man, I wrote in long paragraphs back then.

OK, so I've got more thoughts here, in my opinion piece from last year, "7 Reasons Why Linux Won't Succeed On The Desktop."

Where do you stand on open, er, free software? Please leave a comment below, or shoot me an e-mail directly at alex@alexwolfe.net.

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Alex Wolfe is editor-in-chief of InformationWeek.com.