"I'm looking for a FOSS alternative for this thing."
"Why not use CorpThing dot io? It's FOSS"
"That's run by a corporation."
"So what? Why does that matter? It's still FOSS."
"They should hand over the project to community governance then."
"That's unrealistic, they need to protect their business interests!"
"Exactly."
@joepie91 Does that count as FOSS? I haven't really looked into the differences between OSS and FOSS, so I'm just asking out of curiosity.
I thought FOSS meant free without strings attached.
@tsrberry There's not a meaningful difference between OSS and FOSS; both ("open-source" and "free") basically just relate to certain guarantees being provided by the licenses (and they're largely the same guarantees). There's slightly different ideological backgrounds, but that's about it really.
Neither of them account for governance of the project itself, or *future* licensing. It's been a massive hole in the FOSS ideology for a long time, that's frequently exploited by corporations (even those who use copyleft licenses).
@joepie91 I see, thank you very much for answering! Definitely something I'll want to keep in mind