Tianay Pulphus writes: > What's the story behind the name? What's a foss? Is it a play on "boss"?
It's Icelandic for "waterfall" :-รพ, but in this case it refers to free and open source software. Free and open source software are historically different names for the same software, but each name is preferred by different people who have different emphasis. (A common misconception is that "free software" must be reciprocally licensed and that "open source" software must be permissively licensed. This misconception comes about partly because people assume that the two terms must refer to different software, or because people who prefer to talk about "free software" often prefer reciprocal licenses, while people who prefer permissive licenses usually prefer to talk about "open source". In fact, both terms are properly applied to both kinds of licenses, and the difference in primarily one of connotation, not denotation.) "FOSS" (as well as "FLOSS", adding "libre") is an umbrella term that acknowledges both names without choosing between them. -- Seth Schoen <[email protected]> Senior Staff Technologist https://www.eff.org/ Electronic Frontier Foundation https://www.eff.org/join 454 Shotwell Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 +1 415 436 9333 x107 -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
