Free Versus Open Source Software

This blog post is about my thoughts on an article by Benjamin Mako Hill. When Free Software Isn’t Better

Benjamin Mako Hill, a board director for the Free Software Foundation, writes that there is an issue with the philosophy of open source, at least in the open source initiative’s mission statement.

Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

Hill argues that the Open Source’s definition for software devalues Free Software Projects. He argues that it has been shown that proprietary software can exceed the quality of projects that would be considered open source or free software. Hill also points out that many free software projects hosted online have at most five contributors; again the open source initiative’s mission statement gives one little reason to contribute to these kinds of projects. Hill explains that the open source initiative’s mission statement suggests that many free software projects with a small number of contributors have no advantage over proprietary software. He then compares open source to free software; that with free software advocates, these projects with few contributors are still seen as a small success; that these projects begin with an ethical advantage over any proprietary software.

Hill closes his article by stating that the open source initiative should be able to defend their mission statement that collaborative development resulting from free software results in higher quality software. He also acknowledges that there is no need to reject the arguments presented by the open source initiative that collaborative development can result in higher quality software.

I believe that main idea that Hill wants us to take away from his article is that the philosophy of the free software foundation is focused on the ethical aspects of software to argue towards contributing to free software projects, while the open source initiative argues that “open sourcing” your project will lead to higher quality projects, which is not always the case.

I give the article 0b100 out of 0b101. I would have liked to have known Hill’s thoughts on combining the ideologies of open source and free software. While the free software foundation focuses on ethics of free / open software, the open source initiative focuses on the merits of free / open software.

Some food for thought:

Doesn’t a separation of idealogies cause a rift among developers, and actually discourage collaboration / openness?

Can’t the open source initiative and free software foundation combine their efforts and idealogies?

If it’s technically difficult to combine their efforts, isn’t that evidence of my first question?

If combining the efforts of both organizations resulted in one larger organization, would that violate the ideal for decentralization?