“The official definition of "open source software," as published by the Open Source Initiative, is very close to our definition of free software; however, it is a little looser in some respects, and they have accepted a few licenses that we consider unacceptably restrictive of the users.”

1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)
Context: While free software by any other name would give you the same freedom, it makes a big difference which name we use: different words convey different ideas.
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 term "open source" quickly became associated with a different approach, a different philosophy, different values, and even a different criterion for which licenses are acceptable. The Free Software movement and the Open Source movement are today separate movements with different views and goals, although we can and do work together on some practical projects.
The fundamental difference between the two movements is in their values, their ways of looking at the world. For the Open Source movement, the issue of whether software should be open source is a practical question, not an ethical one. As one person put it, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement." For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the Free Software movement, non-free software is a social problem and free software is the solution.

&quot;&quot;Re: GPL version 4&quot;&quot; on NetBSD mailing list (17 July 2008) http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2008/07/17/msg001546.html <br class="br">See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html for more explanation of the difference between free software and open source. <br class="br">2000s

Re: The Next Generation of Lisp Programmers http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/e239591cbc9eb18d (Usenet article). <br class="br">Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Quoted in &quot;Linux Game Publishing: An Interview With Michael Simms&quot; http://web.archive.org/web/20050712080821/http://www.linuxgazette.com/node/10249 Linux Gazette (2005-06-03)

more and louder than ever before.
1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)

Big Omaha http://www.siliconprairienews.com/2010/12/big-omaha-video-series-matt-mullenweg-robert-scoble, Conference Interview, May 2010

2000s, Thus Spake Stallman (2000)

1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)

1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)