Portal talk:Free and open-source software/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Portal peer review.

With a view to identifying areas of weakness for a featured portal candidacy filed in the near future, I've opened a portal peer review thread. Please consider participating. Regards, AGK 13:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Free Software by license?

Hello. What about creating a "Free Software by license" category? It is as important as "Free software by programming language". Any opinions? (please tell me if this is the wrong place).--OsamaK 17:41, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't really consider the programming language to be of that much importance -- license is by far the most important thing when it comes to free software. I say go for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.167.145.223 (talk) 02:07, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Category:Free software projects

What is a "Free software project" as opposed to, for example, a "Free software organization"? Could someone write a definition, either a brief note on the category page or an article? Thanks, 69.106.242.20 (talk) 01:24, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

An organization is a group of people. A free software organization is a group of people who do something related to free software. They or others may start projects related to free software (being a project that produce free software or something else that relates directly to the freedom of software) -- these projects are then free software projects. The Free Software Foundation is an example of a free software organization -- GNU is an example of a free software project. I would call the Defective By Design campaign a free software project too -- this may be stretching the term, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.167.145.223 (talk) 02:11, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Please fix the image

on

85.77.179.98 (talk) 10:34, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Free vs Open Source

The introduction states, "Open-source is also always free software, though the reverse is not always true," which is incorrect. Accessibility to source code is a necessary condition to be free software (see [1]). Therefore all free software qualifies as open source software. Not all open source software is licensed under terms that allow it to qualify as free software. 69.86.33.221 (talk) 18:31, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Software can meet FSF's criteria and fail OSI's, and software can fail FSF's and meet OSI's. In reality, almost no one writes licences that only meet one set of criteria.

Plus there's the fact that both sets of criteria are interpretable. FSF has shown in the past that "nearly" isn't good enough. OSI kinda follows FSF's judgements (ex: OSI could have declared GPLv3 to be non-open source, if you interpret the drm-cant-block-freedom clause to be discriminatory to a "field of endeavour", but that would just make OSI irrelevant.) That's not a criticism of OSI, it's just a dynamic that makes it even more likely that licences will be accepted by both or neither.

But in the end, software that is one but not the other is in such a minuscule minority that discussing it in an introduction is excessive. Gronky (talk) 05:09, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Distribution verses Operating System

Is it true that ubuntu and fedora are actually distributions not operating systems? DG12 (talk) 19:42, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Linux distributions as far as I know are all operating systems. The term distribution is used mainly to indicate that the Linux kernel on its own is not an operating system (i.e. it is distributed along with other software and is very limited on its own). For a Linux distribution to not be considered an operating system it would have to be lacking many of the other tools that allow users to run applications. | Je mir (talk) 19:30, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

They're both. A "distribution" is just a collection of software. GNU/Linux is an operating system, but Fedora and Ubuntu distribute much more than just GNU/Linux. They distribute LibreOffice, GIMP, gnupg, Apache... there are good arguments for calling these things "part of the operating system", and there are arguments against. And the answer will be different in 2012 and 2032. (In the 1980s, no one would have considered a web browser to be part of an operating system.)

So, when you have GNU/Linux and a load of useful software that works together, you have a distribution. There's an operating system in there too, but there's never a need to say exactly which parts are "operating system" and which parts are "additional packages". Gronky (talk) 05:17, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Android?

Why not include Android? It is free, open source? Heart reaper (talk) 13:00, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Merge from Outline of free software

The article Outline of free software has the look and feel of a portal, and should be merged into this article: Free software portal. Belorn (talk) 16:31, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. The merge would make this portal stonger, and have more editors watching it. The merge should be done with a #REDIRECT [[]], so existing wikilinks work.
I moved, with edits, the above paragraph from Talk:Outline of free software as having the discussion on the Merge To page makes it's easier to find, if the merger goes though. Lentower (talk) 17:46, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• Conditional agree. I support this merge if the contributors who have made the Outline article also find it a good idea. I.e. if the portal really will gain contributors from the merge, then agree. If it's against the wishes of those contributors, and will frustrate them and drive them away, then it would be counter productive. Gronky (talk) 02:53, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
• Outlines and portals are orthogonal to one another. See WP:OUTLINE:

  Outlines are also different from portals, as portals are a collection of excerpts about the subject in various formats without seeking to provide a comprehensive overview of the subject area. Outlines seek to be comprehensive overviews to give the reader the broadest understanding possible of the subject.

  Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:39, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Strongly oppose. The article Outline of free software is structured as a typical "outline" list and is a part of the larger Outline of knowledge. 121.45.219.156 (talk) 07:20, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Massive deletion of Free Software pages on Wikipedia

Hello, I am developer of one of the "minor" Linux distributions. Maybe some of you have noticed that a huge number of distribution's pages were added into consideration for deletion from wikipedia by several admins. Please come to this discussion page and give your opinion before they succeed in what they are up to, whatever their motif is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Leeenux_Linux Spiralciric (talk) 16:26, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Subjects must meet our notability requirements. This requires being noted and reported on in the media. New software will not meet these requirements right away, it will take several years. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, we report what secondary sources say about a subject. If there are no secondary sources, an proper article cannot be written and if created, will be deleted. Yworo (talk) 18:26, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Portal:Freeware redirects here

Portal:Freeware redirects here, which caused confusion on at least the Dwarf Fortress page, where it was later replaced with a direct link to Portal:Free Software.

Even without that replacement, the redirection suggests that freeware and Free Software are the same thing.

174.7.214.214 (talk) 15:48, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

The edit links

The edit links aren't working. Currently the "box" template is passed the box title and the box content. It doesn't know the name of the subpage. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:31, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed --Rezonansowy (talk • contribs) 12:35, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Laravel

Ok, I know back then in late 2012 it maybe wasn't notable. But NOW it is, don't you all agree? More than 6k "stars", almost 2k forks on github... Laravel 4 is reinventing PHP web app development. A quick search on google shows big and respectable blogs talking about it. Leonelsr (talk) 14:06, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of BlackRay

The article BlackRay has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

I can't find any reliable sources. Project no longer maintained.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. genium ⟨✉⟩ 12:28, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

HTML-Code issues of this page Suggestion Fixing style/layout errors

I've found some strange doubled ";;" inside the inline-style of different "div"s on this page.
May be someone deeper involved should have a look for this ?!

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Example:

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<div style="border: 2px solid #53C0A7; background: red; color: white; padding: .4em; text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: 10pt; margin-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: none; background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(bottom, #05F1AE,#1FAD8C); background-image: -o-linear-gradient(bottom, #05F1AE,#1FAD8C); background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(bottom, #05F1AE,#1FAD8C); background-image: linear-gradient(to top, #05F1AE,#1FAD8C);; -moz-border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0; -webkit-border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0; border-radius: 4px 4px 0 0;;"> <i>Associated Wikimedia</i> </div>

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Jaybear (talk) 22:16, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

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• 2nd issue:

The inline-style-option "background: red;" inside this related "div"s causes a red title bar in older browsers, esp. iExplorer 7.
Why not change this to a shade of green, for example a little brighter than the Border-color ?
Jaybear (talk) 22:25, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

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Icon change

I suggest changing the icon to Image:Free Software Portal Logo.svg, because many portals have the same icon (computer), so it should be changed to already used as a FOSS portal icon, but it's my opinion. --Rezonansowy (talk) 21:51, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

There is a "Free Software Portal", not a "Free Open Source Software Portal", this logo is not relevant to free software, so I suggest using this one like on wp.fr. genium ⟨✉⟩ 15:46, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

You're right, that logo was set up for this article since it is mainly s "free software"(free as in freedom) article and not a "free as in beer" "open source" aka "FOSS",

a new portal was created for the FOSS software that doesn't respect the "free software" criteria. 41.230.232.245 (talk) 18:31, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Mass category changes

Do the mass changes seen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/41.230.232.245 have consensus?

In particular, see my comments at Talk:Slackware#Source model, where I say:

There are four basic ways a distribution can handle non-FOSS components. They are:

[1] 100% FOSS, no non-FOSS components made available by the distribution.

[2] 100% FOSS, adding non-FOSS is made easy (may require a recompile).

[3] Some non-FOSS, stripping non-FOSS out is made easy (may require a recompile).

[4] Some non-FOSS, no obvious way to create a 100% FOSS version.

Slackware is [3].

Richard Stallman will tell you that only [1] is real FOSS. Pretty much everyone agrees that [4] needs to be described as non-FOSS or perhaps a mixture of FOSS and non-FOSS (but then again, that describes Microsoft Windows; the TPC/IP code in Windows is BSD-based...)

To my way of thinking, the difference between [2] and [3] is trivial, and I think Slackware was wise to decide on [3]. Anyone who cares about FOSS vs. non-FOSS is likely to have no problem getting the list of non-FOSS components at freeslack.net and purging them -- and in fact are unlikely to trust code that someone else compiled -- but the vast majority of users will be fine with the default OS including some non-FOSS components.

From a Wikipedia standpoint, if properly referenced all of this would be a fine addition to our Free and open-source software page , but I really don't see a point in differentiating between [2] and [3] in the individual OS pages. As I said, the difference is trivial. Some OS's (Android and GNU Hurd spring to mind) are notable for being free or not free, but in general this should be addressed on the Free and open-source software page. You will find many sources talking about mixing in non-FOSS software, but those sources are unlikely to point at Slackware as an example.

and

I am not sure why you believe that Slackware has no option to remove non-free components. The link you yourself provided ( http://freeslack.net/ ) clearly says "the purging procedure is relatively straightforward. Simply remove offending packages with removepkg, configure, compile, and install a linux-libre kernel, and finally remove the stock kernel packages (kernel, modules, firmware)." Anyone who cannot do that is unlikely to be happy with Slackware anyway, because that's the standard way of updating Slackware.[2] As the saying goes, Slackware is user-friendly. It's just picky about who its friends are.

I am also not sure why you think that the default install image for Debian containing no non-free software is particularly significant or that Debian makes no suggestions to install non-free software. As the FSF says, [3]

"Debian also provides a repository of nonfree software. According to the project, this software is “not part of the Debian system,” but the repository is hosted on many of the project's main servers, and people can readily learn about these nonfree packages by browsing Debian's online package database. There is also a “contrib” repository; its packages are free, but some of them exist to load separately distributed proprietary programs. This too is not thoroughly separated from the main Debian distribution. Previous releases of Debian included nonfree blobs with Linux, the kernel. With the release of Debian 6.0 (“squeeze”) in February 2011, these blobs have been moved out of the main distribution to separate packages in the nonfree repository. However, the problem partly remains: the installer in some cases recommends these nonfree firmware files for the peripherals on the machine."

So do these category changes have consensus? I think that in the case of Slackware they do not. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:24, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

First of all, to explain, FOSS is different from "free software": FOSS means only "free as in beer and open source", while "free software" means "free as in freedom but can be sold": FOSS is used to define "open source" software. "open source movement" and "free software movement" have different philosophies: "free software" is a matter of freedom (the four essential freedoms), "open source" doesn't care about user's freedom but cares about "openness" instead.

Concerning those changes: it's justified, since there is there's no clear policy which restricts the inclusion of nonfree software, also the used kernel within slackware is not "free software": it is the kernel released by Torvalds (under open-source philosophy) which includes non-free proprietary firmware (and have violated the GPLv2 ) and thus doesn't respect the user's four essential freedoms: at that point, Slackware should be distributed in the future under a guidelines which can be compatible with GNU FSDG and use the Linux-libre kernel instead, to be a "free software distribution", and thus can be considered related to "free software" portal. As for consensus, I don't see any reason why it is needed there. Fsfolks (talk) 15:51, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

References

Double boxes

Resolved

@Rezonansowy: After this revert the portal has two sets of boxes around each subpage. Portal:Free software/box-header and Portal:Free software/box-footer create the square-cornered box with an "edit" link at the top right, while Portal:Free software/box creates the round-cornered box with an "edit" link at the bottom right. I don't mind which style is used, but having both seems wrong. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:19, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

@John of Reading: It's  Fixed now. I also improved a color of title in the box. --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 13:03, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Portal redesign

Hi there, I redesigned the entire portal. I think not every portal should have the same color identification, so I placed a little green freshness in design. New design features:

• new color scheme – midgreen+gray+white
• new boxes look&feel – it's rounded now
• new tab navigation – one template to rule them all

Know issues:

• I have a one problem, I want to make a param in Portal:Free software/Header2 to specify the current tab page (1, 2 or 3), however when I include {{/Header2|1}} in the main page, the first tab should highlight, but it doesn't. It seems I don't understand the exact mechanism of MediaWiki's #if method. @John of Reading:, could you help? --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 17:24, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

@Rezonansowy: Better now? -- John of Reading (talk) 19:18, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Great, thanks! --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 19:28, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Renaming Category

I feel that "free" is ambiguous, so I would prefer "freely licensed" in the category name instead. Taemyr (talk) 23:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Free is not ambiguous if you look up the definition. Freely licensed however is very ambiguous -- does that mean that the copyright holder can license his project any way he wish? That you, as a licenseholder, may change your license when you want (and to what you want)? Or does it mean that the software in question is free software? These arguments aside, adding yet another term for the same concept which most people don't get anyway won't do any good -- also it is not the task of Wikipedia to add or change definitions in this manner.

Free can mean a lot of things. Freely lisensed doesn't mean it is all free. Some software also has a free trial. However, free is the easiest to understand. You get the gist. PokestarFan (talk) 00:37, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

software infobox

Resolved

Hi !

Not quite sure which portal or project is maintaning the the infobox and templates for software articles, so i'm asking that question here. At GeoGebra i noticed the peculiar behaviour that the version display is stuck at 5.0.180 and doesn't match anymore the value that was entered via the linked template which is currently at 5.0.187. Does anybody know why that is and how to fix that?--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:33, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

@Kmhkmh: The page looks OK to me. Perhaps it only needed a purge? -- John of Reading (talk) 07:25, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes the problem seems resolved now, I suppose it was a cache problem somewhere along the way. Never ran into something like this before though.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:16, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Move of Portal:Free software to Portal:FSF

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 18:44, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

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I have had this undiscussed move reverted, as the discussion above goes on. There was never any consideration of moving Portal:Free software to Portal:FSF, as that would be like moving Airliner to Boeing. We are not here to promote any business entity over any other. - Ahunt (talk) 18:37, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I agree with you. I just wanted to make this a disambiguation page because of people who may think of freeware and gets redirected to this page which in reality contains the software approved by FSF: and that's really what is biased. So Do you agree with a move to a disambiguation page? Ttt74 (talk) 00:19, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Maybe you misunderstood me because I forgot the disambiguation page. I did it right now. Ttt74 (talk) 00:46, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

No that is not a good idea, this is a portal page, not an article page so not appropriete for a disambiguation page. Besides that your conversion to a disambiguation page doesn't list any disambiguation links. It doesn't work. - Ahunt (talk) 00:59, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Ok, that was only a suggestion. Maybe I'm done here. Ttt74 (talk) 11:28, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Archive opt-in

The list of topics is growing. I think it's time to enable archiving on this page. --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 20:09, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

 Done -- John of Reading (talk) 15:01, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 16:46, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

NPOV: Why does Free software has a GNU logo to it?

NO ACTION:

We stay with the current logo – File:Free and open-source software logo (2009).svg ()

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I've noticed that almost all pages about BSD-licensed operating systems and software includes this Free software portal, and are missing the Open-source software one. Likewise, throughout Wikipedia, pretty much everything BSD is classified as Free software within infoboxes and the main article text, not Open-source software nor Free and open-source software.
Yet this very portal, for example, lists that there are only two Free software operating systems that are available, both distributions of Linux that noone in the mainstream media has ever heard of, and implies that all other operating systems (those that actually bring people to this very portal), are not actually free software, after all, which is quite an ironic twist to the story, I must say!
(Getting sidelined, it's also notable that both of those distros don't do too good in the WP:PRIMARY front, and, objectively, might as well be nominated as not passing WP:NOTABLE – at a quick glance, pretty much all references in their articles come from their own authors and from FSF, and, like it or not, but FSF (and this portal) are pretty much the only reason those distros exist and are known; moreover, IIRC, some from the OpenBSD project even did find quite a bit of "non-FSF-free" stuff in those "free" distributions at one point.)
Can someone kindly explain how this deviation on the use of the term "free software" from the common meaning in the English language is any different from the Linux vs. GNU/Linux arguments as explained in MOS:LINUX, and, moreover, how is this practice here does not violate WP:NPOV and common sense?
Best regards,
MureninC (talk) 03:57, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

@MureninC: Here's a gallery of some logos used in this portal to illustrate the idea of Free software. Basically, the first one is the most "politically correct", but I think File:Heckert GNU white.svg – which is a FSF symbol – illustrates topic very well. I also ping other users to invite to the discussion.

• 
  Free and open-source software logo (2009), suggested by me and Ahunt
• 
  Heckert GNU white
• 
  Heckert GNU nuvola-style (used for now)
• 
  Free Software and Open Source Software Composite logo, suggested by Kb333
• 
  Desktop computer clipart – Yellow theme

--Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 01:02, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree that any symbol used for free software should not represent just one organization. Many, many organizations have had a hand in the development of free software and so any symbol used has to represent all of them or be neutral. - Ahunt (talk) 01:57, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Support 1st logo - however I'd prefer one that illustrates principles of the FOSS movement - such as collaboration, openness, transparency, extendability and freedom. However I couldn't find such an image. I'm totally against using the GNU as logo (if anything the logo of a broad initiative would be more appropriate). --Fixuture (talk) 22:08, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Idea: I also have an idea. Why not to merge Portal:Free software and Portal:Open-source software into one FOSS portal, focusing on all Free, Libre and Open source software topics? Portal:Free software hasn't seen any update except redesign, which is mainly my effort, and Portal:Open-source software looks like a copy of the first one and it's even unfinished. What do you think?--Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 01:21, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Good point! - Ahunt (talk) 01:57, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I support the change of "Free software" or "open source" to the neutral "FOSS" and the joining of the portals (Terminology needs not only here but everywhere in WP, lists etc, to be neutralized). Also, the symbol obviously needs to be NPOV'ed (the first logo looks fine & neutral enough for me). WP needs to distance itself from this terminology conflict. Shaddim (talk) 20:12, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I just noticed that in 2014 already someone replaced on the commons the category Open_source_software -> to Free software (and not FOSS) at the commons. A bot is re-categorizing therefore all content (example https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Open-source-vs-freeware.svg&action=history). Could not find a discussion about this. (the same for https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Free_and_open-source_software, Ironically the "neutral" Foss logo is therefor now in the free software cat.) Shaddim (talk) 23:11, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Support - more useful, (imo) more correct and clearer. (Note: the portal should have the written-out title on top.) --Fixuture (talk) 22:08, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

We seem to have a consensus to change the logo to the first one, so I will go ahead and do that. - Ahunt (talk) 16:18, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I asked according to the discussion for an exhange of the image here too. What about further steps in unifying/neutralizing free software / FOSS etc (e.g. categories, page naming)? Shaddim (talk) 23:35, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Most free software uses a GNU license (I can't think of any which doesn't). GNU is very much a driver of the movement too. --Monochrome_Monitor 16:23, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

This is not correct. Many free software project use BSD, MPL, Apache etc licenses (see the "Software using the ..." license numbers). According to Black duck the GPL lost even its top position among the FOSS licenses (https://www.blackducksoftware.com/resources/data/top-20-open-source-licenses). and, yes theses are Free software licenses according the FSF standards. And there are multiple entities who drove and drive FOSS software (to use the neutral term) forward. Apache, Linux people, Mozilla, Debian, OSI, the BSDs etc etc. Shaddim (talk) 19:43, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Even if it was still the most popular licence I still don't see that as a reason to use the logo as representative of all free software. It is just prejudicial to Wikipedia's neutrality to do so. - Ahunt (talk) 17:54, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't thinking of BSD-like licenses (like the MIT license/apache), they have a few restrictions on distribution. I'm pretty sure GNU is the "freest" license. I suppose I should have clarified that... call me a radical but I also don't like to overlap the terms "free software" and "open source software". --Monochrome_Monitor 00:23, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Anyway I understand your point, but I still think gnu is a pretty good symbol for it. The GNU project coined the term "free software" and it's still a leading driver of the movement. --Monochrome_Monitor 00:31, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

About "coined Free software", I would like to add this ref which shows that Free software was in use before the definition before RMS, in the meaning public domain software with source. RMS just redefined an existing term. Shaddim (talk) 21:34, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

But I guess it gets at the heart of the debate between the philosophical and technical aspects of free/libre/open source software. Copyleft vs permissive, GNU/Linux vs Linux, Free software vs open source... (well, originally open source was in line with free but then it drifted) I think it could be a good idea to rename the project "free and open source software.", and have sections for both... stuff like copyleft/permissive and the various movements... --Monochrome_Monitor 00:40, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the GNU project drove a lot of the free software movement, especially in the 1980s and 90s, but it is still only part of the movement, it is controversial and it is a "brand". It would be like using a "Ford" logo to represent all automobiles. Sure Henry Ford started mass production and was very influential, but it is still a "brand" and not the whole industry. I think we can be more neutral and not pick sides or support one brand over others. - Ahunt (talk) 00:42, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Hmmmm well are you talking about the general FOSS movement, or just about free software? I'm talking about free speech, not free beer. This portal is called free software so I assumed you know, it meant free software in the sense of GNU as opposed to the broader FOSS category. If the former, I definitely think GNU should be the logo, if the latter, I agree with you that it shouldn't. --Monochrome_Monitor 00:51, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

No we are quite on the same page about the subject. Even if we narrow the subject to "free software" and only "free software", I still think we shouldn't be using one organization's logo as the icon for the portal. Other people and organizations have made contributions, too and the GNU logo excludes them and, given the controversial nature of the organization, leaves us picking sides at Wikipedia, which I think we should avoid. - Ahunt (talk) 00:55, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Eh, GNU is controversial? Please enlighten me. I'm not being facetious. I think its ideals are great though it is sort of shitty that they make people put "GNU" in the name of everything. I think it's Stahlman's recompense for "GNU/Linux" never catching on. Anyway, I think this addresses a lot of issues. Like, open source movement and free software movement are two different articles... and they have overlapping content... --Monochrome_Monitor 01:07, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Anyway, I think we should rename this portal to "Free and open-source software", much like the template Template:FOSS. And I personally like the combined open source/free software logo. --Monochrome_Monitor 01:24, 20 February 2016 (UTC) Though I think the foss one is good too. --Monochrome_Monitor 01:28, 20 February 2016 (UTC) Anyway, we need to do a bit of reorganizing. --Monochrome_Monitor 01:28, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I realized. There's already an open source software portal. So it makes sense to make this separate, or to merge them. Just as the open source uses the open source logo, its natural that free software would use the "free, as in freedom" logo. --Monochrome_Monitor 01:32, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

But I'm all for merging the two portals. It's silly that the free software portal would be called "free and open source software" while the open source portal would just be called "open source". --Monochrome_Monitor 01:34, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I would be in favour of merging them as well. There is too much overlap to keep them separate. Not controversial? Ask Linus what he thinks! - Ahunt (talk) 01:38, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia can help heal the schism. Lets go to the open source portal and ask them. --Monochrome_Monitor 01:44, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Hhahaha Portal:Open source redirects here. I think that's hilarious. Well, a good start on how we can merge the two is this template Template:FOSS. --Monochrome_Monitor 01:47, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I think we should merge the projects and portals but still make distinctions where appropriate. Like we could have the category "free and open source software" and then have the subcategory "free software" inside of it. --Monochrome_Monitor 01:52, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Sure, I agree. - Ahunt (talk) 02:34, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I'll ping @Dsimic:, I think we can agree on this. --Monochrome_Monitor 00:12, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree on a joining the portals "Free software" and "Open source software" to "FOSS". About joining categories, I support "Free software" as subset of a "FOSS" category. I want to add that this order is NOT the FSF order, the FSF would say FOSS is a subset of "Free software", but we should not got confused here, FOSS is the superset. Additionally I want to add that the question which software package is "OSS", "Free" or "FOSS" is also political laden and ambiguous (several points of view and factions inside a development group) why I would tend as standard to put them to a neutral FOSS category. Shaddim (talk) 09:59, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment: The relevant discussion about move of the Portal to a new name is listed in threads below. --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 14:50, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Comment: So reassuming – we stay with the current logo – File:Free and open-source software logo (2009).svg (), right? --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 14:42, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

@MureninC, Fixuture, Ahunt, Shaddim, and Monochrome Monitor:? --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 06:01, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Support, as we have no alternative currently which represents FOSS unbiased while reflecting the broadness of the movement. Shaddim (talk) 14:29, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Support - I agree, we need to avoid the appearance of endorsing particular organizations or agendas. - Ahunt (talk) 14:35, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Move Portal:Free software to Portal:Free and open-source software

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 14:18, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

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The movement's both arms are largely identical in license acceptance and practice. "Open source" is in mainstream perception as least as well know as "Free software", the usage of the unifying term would be appropriate. Would be also consequentially after the "FOSS" logo selection of the portal. Shaddim (talk) 14:46, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Support - Ahunt (talk) 15:13, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Comment: no objection, ditto for the merge suggested below. –Be..anyone 💩 18:55, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Support - more correct, more representational of the (single) movement and better understood by the public. (User:Rezonansowy also suggested this further above.) --Fixuture (talk) 20:11, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Comment: How about renaming it to simple Portal:FLOSS instead of long Free and open-source software? Libre software should be mentioned here as well, but this name seems too long to me. --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 17:01, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

what about shorter FOSS? According to what I found as reception in recent years FLOSS was used less and less due to the ambiguity with dental health and even the EU where FLOSS was coined used in recent years FOSS Shaddim (talk) 20:03, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

@Shaddim: OK, if FLOSS is too ambiguous, I'll stay with Free and open-source software and support it for now. Maybe someday the adoption of word libre will be bigger. --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 16:52, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

 Done: Page moved per above talk. --Rezonansowy_akaRezy (talk | contribs) 14:18, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

I have posted at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests to ask for the subpages moved efficiently. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:26, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, RGloucester! -- John of Reading (talk) 16:44, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Rename article "Alternative_terms_for_free_software"

As it was discussed before Alternative_terms_for_free_software should be for NPOV reasons renamed to "Terms for free or/and open source software" or "terms for FOSS" etc. Opinions, please? Shaddim (talk) 13:29, 27 June 2016 (UTC)