Don't judge me I know that frequently they represent almost the same softwares but is just a matter of principles.

IMO both of these ended up being poor names.

"Open source" can be co-opted to mean any project with public source code even if it's not open contribution (think SQLite, and many of the projects effectively run by major tech corporations).

"Free software" falls victim to the eternal mixup with freeware, requiring the endless repetition of the "beer vs. speech" analogy.

I personally think "Libre software" is the term that best encapsulates the intended meaning while being unambiguous and not vulnerable to misinterpretation.

62

It's FOSS not clear enough?

15
- FLOSS
  
  More people need to hear that either way
  
  12
- FOSS is even worse. Free and Open Source makes it sound like free of charge and see my source code.
  
  It's also a politically neutered term and an acronym of conflated concepts.
  
  9
"Freedom-respecting software" is another less ambiguous term.

7
- That would be a better description indeed.
  
  2
English language...

Many other languages have different words for each type of free

5
- And yet our professors at university translated "free software" using our word meaning "free of charge", my ears bled. It should have been libre software from the beginning.
  
  1

It's called LIBRE software.

Because its not free as in free beer.

26

It works better in other languages.

e.g. Es ist frei, nicht kostenlos.

10
- Freibier ist aber kostenloses Bier.
  
  7
- Sorry I don't speak nazism can you repeat in English???
  
  -22
Every time I see this phrase it makes me wonder, if the libre software grants the user a right to redistribute itself wouldn't that imply that it is both free as in speech and as in beer?

I mean, it may be sold, sure, but it would work more like donation, since you also can get a copy from another user instead.

4
I don't often hear it called libre software, but I like it. Better than open source or free software. I'm glad this kind of discussion is back again. It's more important than ever with the increasingly clear unfolding corporate takeover of the Internet.

2

I am more of a Libre type of guy

13

Lets not forget: Linus Torvalds and the Linux Foundation's policies don't actually believe in software freedom. The refusal to upgrade to GPLv3 has directly impacted those who use ChromeOS, Android, and WSL; as well as appliances that use GNU/Linux.

They do not believe in liberation.

(Inb4 someone parrots the "pragmatism" fallacy and proves my point again)

13

Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman never agreed one another. Their principles are very different, Torvalds is more like a tech boy that is inclined to business in other hand we have Stallman that is more a tech philosopher. I am with Stallman. But both are very important for FOSS community. I equally respect both.

17
- I also respect both I agree (no GNU/Linux user would deny that), but Torvalds has faced little to no mainstream criticism on his hypocritical stance. Take one look at the Linux Foundation's top board members and see if they represent the Freeworld. Torvalds directly benefits from a lack of political ethos on Free software.
  
  Stallman asks for the name GNU/Linux to be used and gets bullied online (to this day) by ignorant users who refuse to learn the history. Torvalds directly enables the subjugation of others via tivoization and weak copyleft? The "FOSS community" is near silent in comparison. All in the name of pragmatism that has left so many users uneducated and confused.
  
  When Stallman tells us to say "Free software" he does not mean to say "free for me but not for thee (because I have to feed my rhetorical family in this fast-paced economy)." He seeks total liberation.
  
  19

Bruce Perens who defined Open Source regrets the outcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTsc1m78BUk

10

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=vTsc1m78BUk

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

7
Don't have time to watch a full hour video? The definition of his new Coherent Open Source is at https://licenseuse.org. It's only three licenses: Apache 2.0, LGPL 3 and Affero GPL 3.

3

Join us now and share the software

You will be free hackers, you will be free

7

NGL, the text order is backwards and it's kinda bothering me.

3

Redhat wants to know your location.

1

Open Source is a capitalist plot

-12

How exactly?

5
- The question is why the term "Open Source" was coined when "Free Software" was already there. You can refer https://opensource.org/history for the answer.
  
  The conferees believed the pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape to release their code illustrated a valuable way to engage with potential software users and developers, and convince them to create and improve source code by participating in an engaged community. The conferees also believed that it would be useful to have a single label that identified this approach and distinguished it from the philosophically- and politically-focused label “free software.” Brainstorming for this new label eventually converged on the term “open source”, originally suggested by Christine Peterson.
  
  In short, Open Source is more about business than user's freedom. They didn't want the philosophical and political baggage that comes with the term Free Software but at the same time want all practical benefits that comes with it.
  
  Apart from this, people also confuse Free Software as "copyleft" licensed software and Open Source as software with "permissive" license which aren't true. Almost all Open Source software are also Free Software, there are only a few exceptions.
  
  Similar to the political differnece between the terms Free Software vs Open Source, I also see a political issue in using the term "permissive license" instead of "non-protective license". Non-protective licenses don't protect what "protective" (copyleft) licenses protect, user freedom.
  
  As an ending note, I want to emphasise that I don't encourage splitting the communities in the name of political and philosophical differences. While I believe it's good to understand the hidden meanings and motivations behind using different terms, it's more important to work together for the common good. Whether you prefer Open Source over Free Software or Permissive over Non-protective, if you value people and freedom over profit, we should stand together.
  
  5

Open Source: The source is available to inspect for security issues and can be improved upon by anybody who wants to participate. Most of the times the software development is financed by donations in cash from users or in time from developers.

Free software: Software you get for free, usually paid for by siphoning off data, running ads (which include trackers), ... sometimes open source, most of the times closed source.

-15

What you are saying is 'Freemium' software. Free software in our sense is free to do whatever we want, following its license, 'Free as in Freedom.'

21
Probably the wrongest definition ever of Free software.

Here:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

18
- The terminologies used are all over the place, not really helping to make a point.
  
  FOSS is not to clear as well, but helps.
  
  1
Free software: Software you get for free

Not in this sense. This kind of confusion is why we end up with awkward terms like "Free/Libre Open Source Software".

18
No, that's free software, small f. Free Software, capital F, is software which respects your four fundamental software freedoms: to run, study, redistribute, and modify the software.

Open Source is a capitalist trick to make the source code available without necessarily preserving those freedoms.

1
- Open-source preserves these freedoms. Source-available is the term for software that doesn't respect user freedoms, but allows to access the source code.
  
  5