Re: Open source - Free software

On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 17:00:43 +0100
Robert Hull <Robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wednesday 27 September 2006 05:50, Barry Margolin
<barmar@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in comp.os.linux.misc:

How about this: Free software is a subset of open source software,
so all free software is open source.

Untrue - see opera for example

The primary meaning of "free" is not "free of charge". In the proper
circumstances, "free" can indeed only mean "free of charge", like in "a
free newspaper". In other contexts, it can never mean "free of charge",
like in "a free man".

Opera is (since a while) gratis, but neither free software nor open
source software.

Most of the free software that has been turned into a product (like a
boxed set of SUSE Linux) is certainly not gratis.

Software as such is not a product like a box of chocolates or a CD, and
hence there is no reason to assume that free, when used to qualify
software, can only mean "gratis".

--
Stefaan A Eeckels
--
Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
.

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