Anyone comparing the philosophy of "open source" to "free software" without acknowledging the harmful stagnation and single-mindedness in the latter community is not making a thoughtful critique in the year 2022.

To the vast majority of people these terms do not mean different things. Semantically, free software and open source mean the same thing and agree on the same software licenses.

The philosophical differences people attribute to "open source" vs. "free software" are usually a combination of development practices (dependent on the individual author) and arguing about copyleft licenses (even though the FSF agrees "permissive licenses" still make "free software").

The FSF and free software movement have failed because they prioritized the hero worship of a single individual over the actual furthering of their ideology. They have had nothing new or useful to contribute to the public conversation in over a decade.

So I can't believe people are still parroting "open source is about efficiency, free software is about ethics" or similar. Free software is about the ethics of one man, it's not a movement. They have spent all their energy alienating new blood.

If I cannot recommend your movement to anyone other than able-bodied cishet white dudes in western countries, and on top of that I have to caveat it with "it's prickly, hostile, and everyone does what Dear Leader says", then who the fuck is it for? That demographic is the *least* harmed by proprietary software.

The manifestos of free software got me in the mindset of serving users and protecting fundamental rights. But the practice of free software is just like open source, with more hostility.