We are not against the Open Source movement, but we don't want to be lumped in with them. We acknowledge that they have contributed to our community, but we created this community, and we want people to know this. We want people to associate our achievements with our values and our philosophy, not with theirs. We want to be heard, not obscured behind a group with different views. To prevent people from thinking we are part of them, we take pains to avoid using the word 'open' to describe free software, or its contrary, 'closed', in talking about non-free software.
More from Richard M. Stallman
Radical groups in the 1960s developed a reputation for factionalism: organizations split because of disagreements on details of strategy, and then treated each…
Permalink to quote #50 The term 'free software' has an ambiguity problem: an unintended meaning, 'Software you can get for zero price,' fits the term just as well as the intended mea…
Permalink to quote #52 In 1998, some of the people in the free software community began using the term 'open source software' instead of 'free software' to describe what they do. The…
Permalink to quote #49