[MPlayer-dev-eng] Re: [xine-devel] Common Opensource codec API , was : Re: the road to 1.0 and beyond

[Jonathan Rogers]

Guenter Bartsch wrote:
> - opensource
>   while i dislike the word in itself (i never really understood what
>   the opensource movement is about), i think it limits this discussion
>   to just opensource codecs - but binary-only codecs play an important
>   role in today's free software world, like it or not (think quicktime,
>   think real codecs for examples)

It seems that Open Source is a project to make Free Software more 
attractive to business. The term is only about five years old, and I'm 
not sure it is really a movement. It's more of an advocacy organization. 
On the other hand, the Free Software movement is better defined, though 
more radical in its views.

As far as the definitions of Free and Open Source software, they're 
similar enough to be interchangeable most of the time. I prefer the term 
Free Software since it's been around longer, but the two terms are 
almost synonymous in my mind.

<URL:http://opensource.org/>
<URL:http://www.fsf.org/>

Jonathan Rogers