FSF versus OSI

The main page of the course "Open source management" is here.

First work should be comparison of Free software foundation and Open source initiative.

"Read the arguments of both schools (FSF and OSI) and write a comparison."

Free software movement is some type of "new social movement". And the Free software foundation is institutionalized part of this movement, which was established to enforce the ideas of the movement in the legal order. Free software (free in the meaning of freedom) is then some ethical ideal, which, according the FSF, shall motivates the people to produce, use and propagate free software. It is in some aspect moral value, categorical imperative. In fact the results of both groups are very similar - free software and it´s enlargement. But the motivations of both groups are different. It´s philosophical problem. The evaluation is based on the motivation´s of behaviour/acting (which differ) not on the results (which are almost the same).

So, the OSI is organization which want to enlarge the open source model of creating software (intellectual property...), it´s "development method" which put together advantage of "the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process". They stress many advantages of OSM - better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, or defence against vendor lock-in. At the end, open source product are also free. But it is the difference, they completely miss the moral aspect, it´s in the second place. So it mean, that many new users of OS, or it´s creators choose this way because of it´s advantages, not because of it´s moral value.

But in other hand the shift to the arguments, which stress objective/purpose rationality, attract much more people and helped to widespread this idea. Before it was just job of thin elite of hackers, but now it penetrate to wider population.

It´s in abbreviation the main controversy between OSI and FSF. How to influence wider population but still save own values.