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You Say Open, I Say Free ... Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

Apparently I'm not the only one fed up with the vocabulary wars that seem to be part for the course in the open source world. To wit: is free software the same as open source in all but the terminology? The problem is, the terminology does seem to make all the difference -- because we allow it to.

A post at the 451 Group's blog tackles this subject from the POV that contrary to what some might say, a vendor that offers both an open source and a commercially-licensed edition of a product can be called an open source vendor. It's mainly a question of what you're applying the label to: the software, or the company?

... I cannot agree with [Tarus Balog of OpenNMS's] suggestion that vendors with hybrid licensing models (or “fauxpen source” vendors as he puts it) should not be able to call themselves “open source vendors”.

... The OSD refers to the software, not the vendor or the business strategy, so while the OSD can be used to determine whether a software product is open source, it cannot be used to determine whether a business strategy is that of an “open source vendor”.

My feelings on the subject are even more basic: At what point does it cease to even matter? Haven't things grown to the point where what's most important is not the software development methodology, but whether or not the resulting product is any good?

Too much energy is expended in open source circles on applying labels to things -- and not even labels for the sake of convenient categorization and access, but labeling in a political sense. When I see people throw around terms like "fauxpen source" and tote around the the so very tired freedom-as-in-speech-not-beer argument, it means that much more rhetoric and factionalism -- and that much less effort expended towards solving problems that matter to people who actually use software. You know: us?

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