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For quite a while, I thought that Free Software was Open Source Software. I've found out that this view is incorrect, and that Open Source Software is not necessarily Free Software. I honestly can't see any differences.
What am I missing here? What are the distinguishing traits of both parties?
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Open source software refers to the computer software which source is open means the general public can access and use. Closed source software refers to the computer software which source code is closes means public is not given access to the source code.
Open-source refers to the software whose source code is available for anybody to access and modify, while proprietary software refers to the software which is solely owned by the individual or publisher who developed it.
Proprietary software, also known as non-free software or closed-source software, is computer software for which the software's publisher or another person reserves some licensing rights to use, modify, share modifications, or share the software, restricting user freedom with the software they lease.
Both are basically the same, except the free software movement puts more emphasis on the freedom to modify and redistribute the code. For example, GNU GPL would be more "free" than MIT licence, because MIT license does not enforce copyleft and thus someone can develop closed-source software based on the code.
See also Wikipedia chapter about this, which mentions Microsoft shared source inititive, that can provide you with very unfree source code of their applications.
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Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement.
- Richard Stallman
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