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by ptx 2580 days ago
No, open source[1] and free software[2] are the same thing. The only difference is in philosophy of advocacy - the open source movement branched off from the free software movement because they wanted to emphasize the practical benefits rather than the ethical aspects (user freedom).

[1] https://opensource.org/osd

[2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

1 comments

That’s my point.
If you look at the definitions I linked to, you'll see that they are very similar to each other and both involve a lot more than "just means you can view the code".

In fact, the very first sentence of the introduction explicitly rejects your proposed definition: "Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code."

Sure, buddy