RMS: «When we call software “free,” we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes [...] As the advocates of open source draw new users into our community, we free software activists have to work even more to bring the issue of freedom to those new users' attention.

" The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program which is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users’ freedom.

"..RMS’s other mission here is to promote the Free Software Movement. The creator of the GPL...is at pains to correct misunderstandings of what the term free software means and to draw a distinction between it and the open source movement.

"...The first thing we see is that the organization ducks the issue of users' freedom; it uses the term "open source" and does not speak of "free software". These two terms stand for different philosophies which are based on different values: free software's values are freedom and social solidarity, whereas open source cites only practical convenience values such as powerful, reliable software..."

– ## Why I agree with RMS on convenience vs. freedom: --
* RMS: «We cater to them (people who don't care about software freedom) to the extent it doesn't interfere with more important goals, such as establishing a free society.»

"...The free software movement is primarily concerned with building and defending software freedom—the freedom to run, share, and modify published computer software. This is an ethical consideration borne out of considering how we ought to treat one another using computers and software [...] Calling attention to the name "GNU" helps draw attention to the cause of freedom and cooperation..."

GNU guru Richard Stallman sent me an e-mail the other day complaining that we erred by saying that the Free Software Foundation, of which he's president, promotes open source software. "We have never supported the idea of 'open source' because that idea denies the importance of users' freedom," he writes.

"Why should we care to have a 100 per cent free operating system? Isn't being almost free enough? Not if you value freedom itself.

The Free Software Movement was founded to win freedom for software users. Its offshoot, Open Source, was founded to downplay freedom as a value. This difference, which may seem subtle, has big consequences and this is one example of them..."

"...RMS also spend some time on elaborating why people shouldn't just talk about 'Linux' when they discuss those distributions they run on their computers, but instead should call it GNU/Linux [...] GNU's philosophy and motivation is the freedom of users, while Linux does not represent those values at all.