Monday, December 14, 2009

Free software versus open source software

The word "free" can mean different things in English language. The distinction between free software and open source software is that open source software is the description of the development process while free software mean "no price". Free software is most often also open source software, open source software on the other hand is not always "no price" soft.

In recent years there have been made efforts to bring the open source software closer to the business world so that the open source projects could get a bigger user base and be applied to the business world. The initial founder of the GNU license does not approve this approach and does not want to make any compromises between commercial software and open source software - seeing the commercial software and IP principles to be rotten to the core.

I would support the approach where the open source software has commercial applications as well. The good example would be Wordpress.org blogging software where there are both "for price" and "no price" plugins available while Wordpress product itself is open source solution.

The world of open source and free software can also be kind of grey sometimes - such as in cases of "buy me a beer" donation Wordpress plugin software makers for example. It can also be argued that open source software products get the wider user base if the development is motivated by financial situmulus. For example - designing premium commercial Wordpress themes motivates the developer himself, it also increases the number of available themes/plugins for the Wordpress product and thereby increases the overall Wordpress market share.

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