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by dragonwriter 4538 days ago
> Don't forget one of the most striking differences between free software vs open source software is the promotion of a community of people who add to the public knowledge of software engineering, not merely to make better software artifacts.

Even if that is a real ideological division between the two, pragmatically I think that the permissive licenses that the FSF argues are less than ideal have done more after the initial demonstration of the value of F/OSS to promote a community of people who add to the public knowledge of software engineering than have copyleft licenses.

I think the divide over licensing approaches is as much over differing views of effective tactics and the real conditions in the environment as it is about differing views of values and strategic goals, and that permissive vs. copyleft is the real current divide more than free software vs. open source, and that, over time, the permissive side is gaining ground for reasons that have nothing to do with the main cited ideological differences between the open source and free software camps.