Ya’ll in this comment section are making things more confusing somehow.
Free Open Source Software:
Is Free; available without purchase
Is Open Source; the source code is available to study and fork
Is Software; A series of intangible instructions that run through a compute module
Do correct me if I’m wrong, because I’ve just ripped these from other comments in this thread that have been disputed unclearly.
Not financially free but free as in freedom. Although most foss does not need to be bought, but there are foss programs you have to buy and after you bought it you are free to do with it what you want. Although this depends on the licence and copyright. For example you can fork the code and resell it (under certain licences) but due to copyright you can not use certain things such as graphics, fonts and name (depending on their licence).
but there are foss programs you have to buy and after you bought it you are free to do with it what you want.
Any examples? I’m just curious how they stay afloat after sharing the source code once someone buys it, forks it and releases the source.
Maybe ‘F’ in FOSS does not mean it is gratis (de jure), but it is in fact gratis (de facto) for the majority of FOSS?RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) would be an example. I am sure there are more but I am not well versed enough. There is also Ardour but I think that is more if you want a binary and build the software from source.
but everyone just used centos instead. was that a failure of the commercial foss idea?
Maybe, than again Red Hat was bought for an astronomical some by IBM so they were doing something right. Ubuntu still looks like it is doing well. I do not know how Suse is doing but they still exist.
So I think commercial foss is not a failure but probably difficult to maintain.
Graphics font and name fall under trademark I believe, which separates it from copyright.
Firefox is a famous example of this. The code for Firefox is completely open to anyone to fork and reuse, but you cannot call your fork Firefox. Mozilla retains the brand and the logo for it.
So instead we get iceweasel.
Yes sorry I meant trademark. It is just visual such as graphics in games that are copyrighted. That is why you still need to buy Doom eventhough the code was open sourced in the 90’s.
Wrong definition of “free,” and funnily enough this is where the ensuing comments section confusion starts.
… such as?
“Linux requires constant fixing.”
Use one of the stable distros. You generally never have to worry about breakage if you don’t go looking for it.
Linux actually has a large swath of testers using rolling release who we’ve tricked into feeling very superior than the rest of us. /s
Confusing “FOSS” with “free software” comes to mind.
Confusing “FOSS” with just “Open Source” seems like the more typical offender.
But the F in FOSS stands for free. I understand that there’s a lot more to unpack in the OS part of FOSS, but still, it’s not quite wrong.
The F in FOSS stands for Libre
Count Me in the confused group, I thought FOSS was free as in speech software
Free as in speech (software) is nowadays usually referred to as libre.
English is a horrible language full of ambiguity. F/LOSS is libre, but not necessarily gratis.
Isn’t it usually the opposite, gratis (because if it’s open source, you could just build it yourself, unless there’s a proprietary build env or hosted env) but not necessarily libre (because of the license?)
So wouldn’t gratis normally be the superset of libre.
Then there’s a set of gratis but not open source… someone should do a venn diagram.
I could potentially just say it costs money to use this software, but allow you to build it yourself if you don’t want to
It’s called Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in case you were wondering
RHEL contains non-FOSS components, and so is not FOSS.
Okay, I’d have to think of a more pure example, but you get the idea. Downloads and support not free, but compile it yourself if you want
What’s gratis?
It means ‘free of charge’. It’s an English word, but pretty rare, I think. More common in other languages.
it’s a latin loanword if you want to get all linguistical about it
Wait, but persona non gratis can’t possibly mean a person who isn’t free as in beer, can it? You can’t have Me for free, I’ll only sell My sex for money.
Not sure if you’re joking or not, but it’s persona non grata.
Persona non grata means person not welcome.
Gratis is free of charge, or you are welcome to take it.
Actually, both “persona non grata” (latin has cases) and “gratis coffee/beer/bootloader” both make sense.
Just convert the “x is gratis” into “you’re welcome to [relevant-action-verb] x”.
As in, “The kernel is gratis” = “You’re free to [use] the Kernel” (which is basically “it’s free” in everyday english).
For “Persona non grata” it would be “(You’re a) person not welcome (to [come] here)”.
This is what it originally meant. It has nothing to do with price and everything to do with gratuity. I (a provider) am grateful to you and welcome you to use/come/see/do/whatever.
“Gratis” would be the ketchup packet at McDonalds - they’re happy you paid for a burger so they’ll give you a ketcup packet as they’re grateful you did.
All natural human languages have ambiguity. English is no better or worse than any other.
Ambiguity is inherent in all human languages, agreed. But English is one of the most fucked up languages, and in many ways different than most other languages.
Possible reason: it is a hybrid language over-prescribed by racist and classist institutions, which currently serves as a lingua-franca and still rapidly evolves because of all the tech and marketing that happens in the US (in other words, what the fuck is a “slopometer”).
/c/badlinguistics
Well, I look up the community, no posts. I look up your post history, your sole contributions are calls for a badlinguistics community, or calling out comments for being badlinguistics. I find your crusade rather amusing, and I am here to respond to any possible criticism you have about my greatlinguistics.
Generally, FOSS includes both copy-left stuff that is free as in speech, and licenses that are restrictive over what you can actually do with that source code.
No it doesn’t.
“Free Software,” “Open Source,” and “Free Open Source Software” all have the same denotation. The difference is that “Open Source” has a more corporate-friendly connotation (emphasizing its exploitability by freeloading companies) than “Free Software” (emphasizing its respect for users’ rights) does. “Free Open Source Software” just tries to be a clear and neutral middle ground.
Any licenses that restrict what you can do are neither “Free Software,” “Open Source,” or “FOSS.”
I fear there’s a bit of wishful thinking interspersed here.
‘Open Source’ is a term, that means, that the Source code is accessible, but tells you nothing about the liberties that the license grants. There are plenty of proprietary projects that are Open Source in that sense, but with non-free licensing. That might not be how the term was initially used, but that’s just how it is now.
The term FOSS exists specifically to distinguish it from that.
‘Open Source’ is a term, that means, that the Source code is accessible, but tells you nothing about the liberties that the license grants.
No it isn’t. “Open Source” is a term coined by the Open Source Initiative, and they control its definition. Every license that counts as “Open Source” according to OSI also counts as Free Software according to the Free Software Foundation.
You’re getting it confused with bullshit like “shared source” or “source available,” which are propagandistic terms designed to confuse people about proprietary software being freer than it actually is.
Every license that counts as “Open Source” according to OSI also counts as Free Software according to the Free Software Foundation.
Who is not authoritative on the issue. I might agree with the spirit of your comment, but I think it messes up an “ought to” with an “is a”. Let’s replay this: Every open source license should be a copyleft license. Sure! It should. Like all property should belong to the community.
But as it is right now, the creator has intellectual property on the code. They may choose to reserve none or some rights on it. But as long as F/L/OSS is defined within the framework of intellectual property, it is not true that “by definition every open source license is a copyleft license”. This is a fallacy.
(Sorry I wouldn’t bother to use the same terms you used. I mean the same things though.)
Any licenses that restrict what you can do are neither
I am not so sure. What about CC-BY-SA? Open source, share-alike, but restricts modifying the code. More broadly, from the start CC licenses were described as “Some rights reserved”.
Libre software restricts people from sharing code under another closed license. So I think that your statement is not correct either. FLOSS licenses can very much restrict what you can do, and do so very regularly.
What about CC-BY-SA? Open source, share-alike, but restricts modifying the code.
What? That’s not true at all. You can make derivative works with CC-BY-SA.
Edit: your comment was wrong in multiple ways, and I only addressed one before replying.
In addition to simply not saying what you claimed it says, CC-BY-SA is also not, in fact, “Open Source” because it doesn’t appear on the list of OSI-approved Open Source licenses. That means OSI either rejected it or didn’t evaluate it at all. (I assume the latter, in this case, because CC-BY-SA isn’t even intended for software source code to begin with!)
Libre software restricts people from sharing code under another closed license.
No, copyright law itself restricts people from sharing code. “Open Source” or “Free Software” licenses relax those restrictions. Restrictions are never added by the license, only conditions limiting when they may be relaxed.
You can make derivative works with CC-BY-SA.
No.
No, copyright law itself restricts people from sharing code. “Open Source” or “Free Software” licenses relax those restrictions. Restrictions are never added by the license, only conditions limiting when they may be relaxed.
This is exactly why copyleft licenses are now implemented within the context of intellectual property law. You can’t have a socialist biodome specifically for code.
CC-BY-SA is also not, in fact, “Open Source” because it doesn’t appear on the list of OSI-approved Open Source licenses.
Any license that prohibits modification will do. As any license that prohibits redistribution under a closed license will also do.
EDIT: “do” = to refute your statement, from which you just so vehemently distanced yourself, lmao
Þe GPL is restrictive about what you can do; are you saying GPL licensed software isn’t Open Source?
Þe GPL is restrictive about what you can do
No, that’s not true. The GPL imposes zero restrictions. Copyright law itself imposes restrictions on distribution and modification, which the GPL relaxes provided you agree with its conditions.
Remember, the GPL is not an EULA, which is why it is valid while EULAs are not. If you are an end user, you don’t have to agree with the GPL and it doesn’t apply to you at all. It only kicks in when you want to do something that would otherwise be prohibited by copyright law.
Say I’m writing software, and I choose to use a GPL library. Am I unrestricted in what I can subsequently do wiþ my software?
Copyright law has no specifics about source code redistribution. Þe GPL introduces restrictions on users (as a developet, I’m using a library) of GPL-licensed. Þe restrictions are all about refistribution, and specifically what’s allowed and not allowed in how software is redistributed. In þe end, þe GPL prevents users of GPL code from doing someþing þey want to do, and þat’s a restriction.
A law against murder may be a good law, but it still a restriction. Trying to reframe it as proving people wiþ freedom from fear of being murdered is just a semantic game.
This is not correct. In typical use, copyleft means that you have to redistribute it as free software (GPL and variations). The opposite is “permissive”, you can use the software commercially, and charge others to use it as closed source. Copyleft is good for developers, permissive is good for companies.
So “free as in speech” is not even a good analogy. “Liberated” is more like it, perhaps I will start using libre more strictly…
Wine is not an emulator.
Linux doesn’t require programming knowledge to use, just computer knowledge at most.
I seen a few go opposite end and claim “you do not need computer knowledge, you can just ask chatgpt for the commands and copy-paste.”
The two commands below are equivalent so why the fuck does every single guide online use former?
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade sudo apt upgrade -UThe second way doesn’t work on older systems before they added it. I have some Debian servers where it doesn’t work
Because I understand the former
The latter can both summon nasal demons and not summon nasal demons. It is in a state superposition until an observer consults the manual
Not in apt manpage.
But in fact at man apt-get.
I blame the feds.
how the fuck is my apartment going to get clean then
Ah wow a pedantic semantical objection, that’s egregious as fuck that they thought it was something that is identical to a layman
wait someone update this meme to have me drinking out of a straw chain out of the hot dude’s straw chain. please title me “complete bullshit lies about FOSS”
edit: and make me happy gollum with three teeth. that’s my mood today.
This is about some nerd telling me my Linux issues don’t exist and I just need X distro?
That’s relative to situation and also usually the easier solution to a certain problem because if you need to find a solution for your distro it might come to compiling from source. So, either switch to the distro recommended or just start from Gentoo for everything. If you’re using Gentoo, no nerd will tell you to switch to another distro.
i am a nerd and want to do that just to prove a point. so switch distros! i don’t know what to, i haven’t used linux since college.
wait i just figured it out switch to hannah montana because it would be funny
Hats off to the meme distros that actually fix a problem by the way. :)
If you’re using Gentoo, no nerd will tell you to switch to another distro.
Funny! Lmao
Not using the right distro is the source of everyone’s problem, according to the community
I mean, certain distros are very good at marketing themselves/becoming well known, but actually impede wider adoption of Linux due to their piss poor choices or issues that aren’t apparent until they have been in use for a few months, so sometimes, yes, the answer is to move to something less broken in weird ways.
Whatever distro you end up on, someone will be in the comments to tell you why it’s the wrong choice.
Unless you’re using Arch, btw
Except for that one person that tells you to USD Artix instead
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.
