List of disputed FOSS terminology
editThis is a list of differences between the open source and free software terminology. The terms are those used by major organisations, such as the Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative, by community leaders, and by the user communities. It also lists terms that are unambiguous in each category (cannot be confused for another meaning), terms that are neutral (should not offend either community) where such terms exist, and which terms are commonly used (regardless of ambiguity or neutrality). This list is a guide and is not definitive.
| Free Software Foundation term | Open source term | Unambiguous term | Neutral term | Common term | |
| Software licensed under GPL, LGPL, BSD, MIT, Apache, X11 or Mozilla, IBM Public licenses | Free Software | Open Source Software | Open Source Software | Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) | Open Source Software |
| Description of such licenses or software | Free, Copyleft | Open source | Open source | Free and Open Source | Open source |
| No cost (software) | "Gratis" or "free as in beer" | No cost, freeware, freely available | (only "free" is ambiguous) | Zero cost, Gratis | Freeware, free |
| Proprietary (software) | proprietary, non-free, user subjugating, unfree | closed-source | proprietary | proprietary | proprietary, commercial[1] |
| Community and culture | Free software community, Free software culture | Open source community, Open source culture | F/OSS community, F/OSS culture | none[2] | Open source community, Hacker culture |
| Movement | Free Software movement | Open Source movement | Free software and open source movement(s) | Free and Open Source movement (F/OSS movement) | Open Source movement |
| Linux (kernel) | Linux | Linux kernel | Linux kernel | Linux kernel | Linux kernel, Linux version (eg Linux 2.6.x), or Linux when unambiguous or not meaningful to disambiguate |
| Linux (operating system) | GNU/Linux | Linux, or Linux operating system | Linux operating system, Linux OS | Disputed[3] | Linux |
| Linux (distribution) | GNU/Linux distibution | Linux distribution | Linux distribution | Disputed[4] | Linux distribution, Linux distro [5] |
| Free Software Foundation | Open source | Unambiguous | Neutral | Common |
^ commercial software is not an accurate term, as FOSS may be a commercial offering.
^ Whether the Free and Open Source communities are the same community or separate communities is disputed. Notably, the Richard Stallman distances himself from the "Open Source community" which he considers separate from the "Free Software community". However, events for open source or free software developers, such as usergroups meetings and conferences, rarely distinguish between either "subcommunity".
^ see GNU/Linux naming controversy for details.
^ see GNU/Linux naming controversy for details.
^ The choice of "GNU/Linux" or "Linux" in a distribution's name is usually dependent on the decision made by the distribution: e.g. Debian GNU/Linux, or Red Hat Linux.
See also
edit- Open source vs. free software (terminology debate)
- Richard Stallman, terminology section.