Open source: What are missing?

*User* (not developer) freedoms are missing from "open source" talks. They will never be added! You seem to believe that "open source" preexists "free software". It is the other way around: fifteen years *after* RMS started the Free Software movement, the term "open source" was coined... to specifically *not* talk about user freedoms and *not* criticize proprietary software developers.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html (especially the she section "Fear of Freedom") explains it well. Stallman being the author of that text, you may believe that it is biased. It is not: it is what really happened and "open source" proponents do not say otherwise. Read http://producingoss.com/en/introduction.html#free-vs-open-source (a section in the book "Producing Open Source Software"), for instance.

From a practical (rather than philosophical) point of view, "free" and "open source" are almost identical (but philosophy matters!): there are a couple of obscure licenses that the OSI deems "open source" but that the FSF does not accept (for being unclear).

"Security" and "privacy" are features (like stability, accessibility, internationalization, user-friendliness, etc.). User freedoms are more fundamental than that. They do not depend on what the program does but on the rules (the license) that govern its use, modification and redistribution.

Open source is a development model. Their priority is the production of technically superior software(?) that the user(?) can leverage upon.

In the process of making the software more powerful(?), it is not(?) a sin in the open source camp to add bits of proprietary software, including long strings of numbers (Non-free binary blobs, to be specific.) in its kernel, Linux.

They emphasize the convenience(?) the user(?) gets with such practice.

Such open source software is in fact, depriving its users their fundamental human rights of freedom of computing and freedom of privacy.

But the sad fact is that even free software projects like VLC media player developed by VideoLAN project uses the term open source in their official website and in their user manuals; They need to learn why open source is **** NOT **** a solution to the problems posed by proprietary software.

Ironically, the reason I know about the free software movement at all is because the VideoLAN forum guidelines page links to this page: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

From the hyperlink that you referenced here;

Open Source?
Another group uses the term “open source” to mean something close (but not identical) to “free software”. We prefer the term “free software” because, once you have heard that it refers to freedom rather than price, it calls to mind freedom. The word “open” never refers to freedom.

They clearly missed this important distinction between free software and open source software.

Probably they wanted to outreach to greater audience to popularize their project, which I don't think is something wrong.

Also, the "open source"-side is literally a mess.

If you know the concept of "greenwashing", then I would like to
introduce you to "openwashing". What it means depends on your position
here. I'll detail this in future paragraphs.

Just for a start: it's important to note that Open Source Initiative's
Open Source Definition ([1][2]) doesn't address Restricted Boot and other
digital handcuffs.

Besides, some people in "open source" will:

- favor weak copyleft or even lax/permissive licenses;

- consider strong copyleft licenses just as lax/permissive --- by not
enforcing them in their projects;

- offer alternative "editions" of the project's product --- one
"community" and other "enterprise";

- enforce the license too aggressively againts the derivative projects
--- by going directly to litigations in courts, using the "community"
+ "enterprise" combination to influence users of the "community"
edition to use the other or other bad things.

All of the points given above are based on [3][4][5].

Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, the Open Source Definition only
addressess functional data. Other things such as non-functional data,
service as a software substitute, computers for voting, the need for
fostering and providing free/libre software to the public (which is
beyond "usage"), all of these are not addressed by that.

For the sake of clarity, it's important to note that the free/libre
software movement has three distinct ways to address non-functional
data. In the "individual software" level, it's considered enough if they
are at least unlimitedly shareable (which can be assumed from the
numerous documentatio in gnu.org and also considering [2]); in the
"free/libre distributions", they must be at least unlimitedly shareable
and sellable --- so the software that don't fit in are left out ---
(this is defined in [6]); and third: there is also a related effort
called free/libre culture movement, which applies and requires the same
set of freedoms to non-functional data, this also includes complete
corresponding source files, according to the Definition of Free Cultural
Works ([7]). The third approach is optional, it only complements the
other two and is left for each software or distribution project to
decide on which one to follow.

Finally, for those in favor of free/libre software, "openwashing"
extends to the entire "open source"; while for those in favor of "open
source" would consider "openwashing" as a distortion of requirements set
forth by the Open Source Initiative's Open Source Definition.

[1] https://opensource.org/docs/osd (under CC BY 4.0).

[2] http://audio-video.gnu.org/video/2015-10-24--rms--free-software-and-your-freedom--seagl--speech.ogv (under CC BY-SA 4.0).

[3] https://sfconservancy.org/videos/2015-01-15_Bradley-Kuhn_Future-of-Copyleft_LCA-2015.webm (under CC BY-SA 4.0).

[4] https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/copyleft-for-the-next-decade-a-comprehensive-plan/ (under CC BY-SA 4.0).

[5] https://video.fosdem.org/2017/Janson/copyleft_defense.vp8.webm (under CC BY-SA 4.0).

[6] https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html (under CC BY-ND 4.0).

[7] https://freedomdefined.org/Definition (under CC BY 2.5).

name at domain writes:

> Like Richard Stallman and his GNU and FSF heavy works, I have also
> researched for what are missing from the keyword "open source", i can
> tell here first, we will have only freedom of developments like
> derivatives and packaging, and freedoms hacking and testing what else
> are missing, but honestly our security "might" be most likely incurred
> and our privacy needs to be almost always broken, for the daily
> practice esp you are not a developer, a hacker, or a tester "nonfree"
> Linux and BSD distro are very often not a good idea.
> What will be your furthermore views for what are missing in "open
> source" in an operating system which is not under an 100% free kernel?
>

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