Do you reject software labeled "open source" instead of "free software"
Say someone is creating a new software package and wants to distribute on their website and licenses it under a GPL license. When they describe it, they have the option of calling it either "free software" or "open source software" on their site or any other type of description of their software.
Many in the free software camp don't like the term "open source" yet at the same time when a project is licensed under the GPL is is both considered free software and open source.
To the new computer user who has heard the term "open source" more than "free software" for projects, how would someone label their software? Just by calling it free software many confuse the user and they may think it is something completely different than open source when it is the same. If the software was called open source, wouldn't it risk the free software crowd saying it "fits the wrong ideals" and refuse to use it?
So in a nutshell with any type of new GPL software, should it be labeled as both free software and open source or should one pick a side in labeling it?
I am a member!
I wouldn't reject something GPL, just because it's called "open source",
instead of "free software". If something is both free and open-source,
what about the term "foss"? That would appear to eliminate confusion;
maybe it's redundant, if anything free is, by necessity, open-source?
In my experience, the term "free software" is often confused with
"freeware", where the latter is often a crippled version of a commercial
product.
Yeah the free software confusion with freeware was one of the concerns in the original post.
I would not reject it, since it's still free software regardless of
what the author called it. The author might call it open source
because they reject the social, ethical and political underpinnings
of the free software movement and instead think software should be
free because of technical reasons.
Or they might call it open source because they don't know the
difference: Some I know say open source but what they think it means
is the same as free software. For those people, it helps to spend
some time explaining the differences and then they usually start
saying "free software."
So there are two categories of people that say "open source." In
fact, people may have many different motives for writing free
software: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fs-motives.html but it's
still free software regardless of their motives for writing it.
Rejecting free software because of its author's political positions would be downright silly. I don't think anyone would.
I usually say "free software". If I'm in an environment where arguing for freedom instead of open-source would not help (e.g. when promoting a replacement for Game Maker to an audience that doesn't care about either), I sometimes use the term "free/libre/open-source software"; I always spell it out because many people read it as "free *and* open-source software", which can imply that "free" means "gratis".
If there were two identical software offerings but one labeled "open source" and the other "free software" I'd always pick the latter. However, in case of one package labeled "open source" I would not refuse it because of that language.
This article deals with this issue nicely. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
Different choice of words convey different ideas. And it matters.
If someone is making & distributing software under GPL license, I think he already knows that by mentioning it as 'open source' or 'free & opensource' he is giving 'false' information.
He must be thinking that by mentioning 'open source' he is helping a non-tech person understand difference between freeware & 'free software'.
But, actually by merging the meaning of 'open-source' & 'free software', he is sowing seeds of confusion in the non-tech users mind.
In order to stick with facts & also help non-tech person understand the difference, one can state something like 'Its not just open-source, Its Free Software' and give a link to definition of Free Software.
I treat it as a warning that there might be non-free yuck yuck now or in
the future. EG jdownloader, ubuntu.
So we need to use Hurd as kernel, because Linux use only "open source". And reject all made by Red Hat, Canonical and many others companies and projects. (The most of companies uses this term)
Actually, I look for the GPL, instead of caring how the software itself is labeled.