I first saw this on reddit, but I figured it would be good to make sure that this also stays accessible on another platform
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
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Technology
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This list is mostly not software. It's free as in free beer but free software mostly describes free as in freedom. That means open source and free to copy, redistribute and modify. Which a lot of these are not
It really bugs me after all these years that we haven't simply started calling Open Source software just OSS or Open Software to get rid of the ambiguity.
The whole, that's "free" software, not "FREE" software thing is older than sin and I think it might be Richard Stallman's fault we even have this discussion.
But Open Source Software isnt neccesarily free software. For example Chromium is Open Source but not Free Software. That's why the distinction is needed
I'm sympathetic to your idea of calling it OSS or Open Software. But Richard Stallman and people who agree with his arguments really stress the "freedom" of what they call free software. They lost that battle ages ago, but they aren't going to give it up since it's more than just pedantry, it's a value statement.