this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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Free and Open Source Software

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If it's free and open source and it's also software, it can be discussed here. Subcommunity of Technology.


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submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

I used this for years, from version 1.9 all the way to 5.x when I moved onto other software.

EDIT: Here is the full press release.

Press Release- Inside information May 16, 2024 – 08:30 CEST Winamp has announced that it is opening up its source code to enable collaborative development of its legendary player for Windows. Winamp has announced that on 24 September 2024, the application's source code will be open to developers worldwide. Winamp will open up its code for the player used on Windows, enabling the entire community to participate in its development. This is an invitation to global collaboration, where developers worldwide can contribute their expertise, ideas, and passion to help this iconic software evolve. Winamp has become much more than just a music player. It embodies a unique digital culture, aesthetic, and user experience. With this initiative to open the source code, Winamp is taking the next step in its history, allowing its users to contribute directly to improving the product. "This is a decision that will delight millions of users around the world. Our focus will be on new mobile players and other platforms. We will be releasing a new mobile player at the beginning of July. Still, we don't want to forget the tens of millions of users who use the software on Windows and will benefit from thousands of developers' experience and creativity. Winamp will remain the owner of the software and will decide on the innovations made in the official version," explains Alexandre Saboundjian, CEO of Winamp. Interested developers can now make themselves known at the following address: about.winamp.com/free-llama

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What does a free country mean? One having no value of money? Its english's fault that two different words can have exact same spelling and pronounciation. Most other languages have distinct terms for the two "free"s

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ambiguous words with context-dependent meanings don't make trying to define only one meaning as correct a useful and reasonable task to attempt for a small foundation. There are also notably synonyms for "free" that don't have that issue.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

FSF DO NOT try to define free as in freedom as only meaning of free. But in context of software, free software means Libre. That is the point. And of course in english free takes context dependent meaning,and software can be either type of free. So it should be rigorously defined.

Anyway I can't find synonyms for theese two free in english, what are they?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

But in context of software, free software means Libre.

It doesn't though. It's an awkward attempt to define what words mean by a niche group that even those who value its goals don't commonly adhere to. I've been writing software for two decades now. If a colleague comes up to me and asks "is that software free?" they're probably talking about cost. You can't define away common usage. Pick a word that means what you want it to mean or make up a new term.

We all know what FOSS means, because it's a unique term (yes, despite F being Free). We also all generally understand what "open source" means, even if there's some confusion with "source available". But "free". That's a total failure and people trying to pretend FSF has any power to define the word in relation to software are just delusional.

Anyway I can’t find synonyms for theese two free in english, what are they?

https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/free

"Unrestricted" or "permissive" both look good to me. Or as above, just use a term unique to software like "open source" and then you can define it to exactly the meaning you want.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Unrestricted or permissive does not look good to me. Free software can have restrictive licensing, like GPL. It has restriction which makes free software always free. You really know there are so called "permissive" licenses which do not have this. The word free shows the importance of freedom in sodtware which other terms fails to address

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If you're going to complain that the GPL isn't unrestricted (true), then it's just as much a complaint about it not being "free" (as in freedom). Just use "open source". It's its own thing that people understand and is free from definitional conflicts that it will assuredly lose.

That there are these dumb mnemonics for "free as in..." just demonstrates how muddled the supposedly defined term is. If you need to continually explain what you mean by "free", then it's a failure as a descriptor.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hhuh? Open source is not free. Its entirely different ideology. You can't call it open source. Also open source have this same issue that people perveive it as software with "source availiable". Is that dumb mnemonics? I think not!

People cannot understand a "new" ideology from the name itself. Hence they have to define it and popularise it. Free takes meaning in context and they have to make context in terms of software as free as in freedom.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"Free" vs. "open source" is a distinction without a practical difference. It's not about what it is or what it does, it's about vibes.

There's no future step of "popularizing it". They've been trying for 40 years and it's been an abject failure. Another decade isn't going to finally get it to stick, it's just a dumb idea. It's is a very up-their-own-asses grognard thing to just reject reality and keep demanding it happen. "Could it be that I am wrong? No, it must be everyone else who haven't just done what I wanted them to do because I told them to."

And yeah, "open source" and "source available" have some confusion, but that's at least a battle that can be won, and in most cases if you call a source available software package (an actual package with license terms, not just every github project) "open source", you'll usually be right (source available and not open source is already a minority). Pointing to that like it justifies instead continuing the crusade for "free" isn't even remotely comparing issues of similar difficulty.

Trying to jump in whenever someone calls costless software "free" with a "free as in beer"/"free as in speech" explanation or "no, that's costless software, not free software" just makes FOSS look like an arcane and exclusionary movement for unpleasant nerds, like Richard Stallman.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

@Zaktor @mexicancartel i find it hard to even comment on the amount of idiotic things written here

i agree that there are a lot of pointless "free vs open source" discussions, but to say that open source and/or free software hasn't been/hasn't been successful is to have misunderstood what "success" would be in projects of this kind.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

@Zaktor @mexicancartel i think i'm the idiot for wasting my time commenting in this thread

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I also think you're an idiot for wasting your time with two contentless comments, so take that as a vote of confirmation.