> He insists on the term, but he doesn't mean something very specific when he says "free". Unlike what most of his opponents seem to believe, he does not mean "copyleft only" when he says "free". He means the exact same thing as "open source", just like "global warming" means the same thing as "climate change". Same thing, different political slant.
That's not remotely true. When RMS says "free", he means "copyleft". Open Source means merely that interested parties can look at the source but does not imply rights to alter and redistribute. It derives from precedents like the Open Software Foundation (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation) which was open-as-in-specified, certainly not open-as-in-GPL.
Freedom 3 includes the freedom to release your modified
versions as free software. A free license may also
permit other ways of releasing them; in other words,
it does not have to be a copyleft license.
Do people even read this whenever they quote it? He says in it like three times that open source is the same thing as free software (and adds, parenthetically, except for very minor exceptions).
"It does not have to be", but in practice it usually is (although he accepts BSD, even though it doesn't guarantee users' access to modifications). RMS advocates "liberated" software, or software that is itself free from being locked into a proprietary fork. That's the whole point of the GPL family of licenses. If you read the corpus of his works - I have - he very consistently talks about the importance of software freedom and how that Open Source can refer to many very non-Free things.
> Do people even read this whenever they quote it?
Did you? He writes:
"Yet some open source supporters have proposed “open source DRM” software. Their idea is that, by publishing the source code of programs designed to restrict your access to encrypted media and by allowing others to change it, they will produce more powerful and reliable software for restricting users like you. The software would then be delivered to you in devices that do not allow you to change it.
"This software might be open source and use the open source development model, but it won't be free software since it won't respect the freedom of the users that actually run it. If the open source development model succeeds in making this software more powerful and reliable for restricting you, that will make it even worse."
Yes, he's talking about a disagreement there with the open source movement. But the overall thrust of the article is that FS and OS are the same thing, overall, but lead people to different conclusions. He explicitly addresses the misconception that people think that only copyleft is free:
Another misunderstanding of “open source” is the idea
that it means “not using the GNU GPL.” This tends to
accompany another misunderstanding that “free software”
means “GPL-covered software.” These are both mistaken,
since the GNU GPL qualifies as an open source license
and most of the open source licenses qualify as free
software licenses. There are many free software
licenses aside from the GNU GPL.
And that's all I want to get across. rms isn't as loony as people who want to disagree with him make him out to be.
I would even agree that RMS appropriated the term free, but what your statement that RMS says free == copyleft is not remotely true and contradicted by your "source." His definition of "free" is aligned with the OSI definition of "open source" (the term he dislikes). RMS is a waterbearer for copyleft because he doesn't respect proprietary uses, but he includes BSD/MIT licenses under his definition of "free." He doesn't include software that has public source but restricts free commercial use, modification etc.
This notion of free though certainly isn't what most nonhackers/software people would generally associate with the term. It's his formulation.
You seem confused about the definition of copyleft.
When something licensed to me under, say, the BSD 2-clause license, I have the ability to look at the source, to alter it, and to redistribute it (with or without modification). It is not copyleft, because it does not require that derived works be released under a comparable license.
The terms Free Software and Open Source are the same from a technical point of view, to the extent that they describe the same set of software. However, they are different in that they connote different views about the world---people saying free (or libre) software take a stance in that software should be free in order to build more just society, while people saying open source don't necessarily take a political stance with regard to software, and often see licensing only from a business point of view.
That's not remotely true. When RMS says "free", he means "copyleft". Open Source means merely that interested parties can look at the source but does not imply rights to alter and redistribute. It derives from precedents like the Open Software Foundation (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation) which was open-as-in-specified, certainly not open-as-in-GPL.
Source: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h...