[ Thanks to An
Anonymous Reader for this link. ]
“Is Android really open source or not? That is the
question being asked by almost everyone. A lot of people,
especially those influenced by RDF or those who are in the news
industry with no idea about OS and open source but were asked by
their boss to get a scoop on this pronto, tend to bring up a few
keywords and then twist them around in the way they see fit to make
sure it says Android isn’t open. They don’t need to be correct,
they only need the article to “sound correct” by picking up
sentences out of context or putting quotes only from people who
agree with them. This will convince their boss and 99% of their
readers who have no idea about all these things either. But the
boss is happy he got a story and associated clicks. Readers are
happy because they got the points to float around in their next
forum flame war. They don’t have to read when someone corrects
them. They have made their points and rest is all someone making
noises like a rat.“A lot out of the rest of the people, who are indeed informed,
make the mistake of thinking that “Open Source = GPL” or “Open
Source = Free Software”, which is not true. Open source is similar
to free software but is one that choses to keep more options open.
In short, Free Software Movement, as the one evangelized by FSF, is
a subset of open source that tries to achieve freedom of software
by restriction.”