Posted by: The_Wilschon
on August 01, 2005 09:58 AM
Open Source is not free (beer). At least, not necessarily.
I can write some code, slap a GPL (or BSD, or whathaveyou) license on it, and then refuse to give it to anyone unless they pay me 50$. However, as soon someone else has it, under the terms of at least the GPL (don't know about BSD), if you ask me for the source code, I have to give it to you for no more than the cost of reproduction (ie, the cost of a blank CD and 2 minutes of my time and electricity to burn it). Then once you have the source code, you can do whatever you like with it, including giving it away to anyone else you like.
So, in 99% of cases, OSS is free (as in beer). But not always.
OSS is not a subset of free (beer).
On the other hand, Free (speech) software is, depending on who you talk to, a subset of or equal to OSS. I would say it is a subset but not equal, as the source code could be available, but the license might still restrict what I can do with that source code, in which case the software is not Free (speech). However, if the software is Free (speech) then the source code is available.