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Why 'Open Source' Misses the Point of Free Software

By Richard Stallman
Communications of the ACM, June 2009, Vol. 52 No. 6, Pages 31-33
10.1145/1516046.1516058
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Decoding the important differences in terminology, underlying philosophy, and value systems between two similar categories of software.

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Comments

Stephen Arnold

May 25, 2009 02:23

I just changed my profile text (on a couple of different public web sites) from "open source" to "free software" before I even finished reading the full article. Thank you for reminding me why I got involved with free software in the first place.

Chad Colgur

May 28, 2009 12:35

Open source tries to fill the economic vacuum created by free software. Richard encourages us to be vigilant and protective of software freedom. I also see a challenge: explore new ways of integrating software freedom. Don't let open source be our last free software experiment.

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