this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
199 points (91.6% liked)

Open Source

35175 readers
169 users here now

All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!

Useful Links

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] beyond@linkage.ds8.zone 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Different senses of "free." "Free software" refers to freedom, not price. "Freeware" refers to price, not freedom.

"Freeware" typically has the connotation of being proprietary but it doesn't have to be. Most people call actual free software "free software," "FOSS," or "open source." I think this is a side effect of proprietary being the assumed default.

There is a misunderstanding that "FOSS" means it is freeware and open source. You can see that misunderstanding even in this thread.