"Before 'open source,' before free software, there was software in the public domain. You could say that software in the public domain was truly free. The code was 'open source' and the user had the right to take it, break it, appropriate it, re-use it, package it, sell it, re-brand and license it, or do what you will with it.
"The problem with software in the public domain, was that, more often than not, any changes to the software didn't come back to the developer in any usable form, and modifications didn't revert to the original maintainer of the code. In some cases the software was appropriated and relicensed by the user. In other words there was no guarantee that the software would remain free, or would grow..."
