Karl Fogel at
Huh? I don't understand. As far as licensing is concerned, "open source" == "free software". The Linux kernel *is* open source. It's also free software. If the distinction you're thinking of is "copyleft" vs "non-copyleft", that's independent. Both copyleft and non-copyleft free software licenses are *both* open source and free software, and always have been. I'm not aware of any OSI or other movement campaigning to get copyleft licenses designated as something other than "open source" -- copyleft has been open source from the beginning, and I wasn't aware of any disagreement on this point among practitioners.
I said distorting free software. i've heard more than once from no less than OSI board members the claim that free software was limited to copyleft software, and that open source made it more flexible. we both know that's a lie, but there you go.
as for Linux, go for a recent (or old, but the references won't work, you'd have to dig elsewhere, though you'd find more junk) tarball published by mr Torvalds, and look in firmware/WHENCE, that names various licenses used by files under firmware/ that are part of linux. tell me with a straight face how many of those licenses qualify as open source. then look beyond the licenses and go for the software itself, and tell me where the (open?) source of the binaries licensed there under open source licenses are (no, I'm not saying they ought to be available to users to abide by the license, I'm saying they ought to be there to qualify as both free software and open source). guess what? they're not.
oh, but there are not part of linux, you might try to argue to avoid the shame, but look no further than drivers/net/appletalk/cops_??drv.h; aren't those?
as for Linux, go for a recent (or old, but the references won't work, you'd have to dig elsewhere, though you'd find more junk) tarball published by mr Torvalds, and look in firmware/WHENCE, that names various licenses used by files under firmware/ that are part of linux. tell me with a straight face how many of those licenses qualify as open source. then look beyond the licenses and go for the software itself, and tell me where the (open?) source of the binaries licensed there under open source licenses are (no, I'm not saying they ought to be available to users to abide by the license, I'm saying they ought to be there to qualify as both free software and open source). guess what? they're not.
oh, but there are not part of linux, you might try to argue to avoid the shame, but look no further than drivers/net/appletalk/cops_??drv.h; aren't those?