Free Software vs. Open Source
The term “open source” was invented by the Linux community in 1998, and was created to separate it from Richard Stallman’s “free software”. “Open source” means that the source code of a project is openly available and can be used with few restrictions. “Free software” follows a similar, yet subtilely different, ideology. Free software is essentially an activist movement against proprietary software. Stallman believes that all software should be free (as in “free speech”, not “free food”), and uses the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as a way to promote that ideal. The Open Source Initiative (OSI), however, understands the need and use for proprietary software, and even supports the use of open source projects and ideals in proprietary software.
The OSI has the much more defensible position. We live in a capitalist society. At some level, nothing will get done if there’s no money in it. There are many people who write software for the sake of writing software, but they are few in comparison to the market need for good software. That need is filled by capitalist corporations, who produce software to sell it to people. These companies can make good use of open source software, adding their own special value add to what is already available to make a viable product that they can sell. The FSF misunderstands the need for proprietary software. Without the ability to sell software, most software would never get made.