Talk:Free and Open Source Software

From School Computing

[edit] Good distinction, but more complicated for users

Thank you for taking the time to separate these categories. This is an important distinction as well as an educational issue. I do think there is some value in having one list that combines both types (perhaps with distinguishing marks?) for simplicity's sake. March 14 revision

[edit] Much of this list is not "free" or open source

The term "free or open source software" generally refers to software that is distributed under an open source license, as defined by the Open Source Institute, or distributed under a free software license as defined by the Free Software Foundation. This is very different from commercial software which is simply distributed at no cost, or a web application that may be used at no cost. You need a separate page for those types of applications.