A social media thread I got tagged into today snarkily defined a new term:
I think “free as in beer” software is more appropriately called “Libertarian and Open Source Software”, or LOSS. Among other things it involves no obligations on other people, and expects no obligations in return. But this means it’s an everyone for themselves, anti-communitarian endeavor.
I’ve been writing about this problem a lot in the past, not so much on this blog. I came to a different conclusion, namely that talking about FLOSS/FOSS or Open Source has had its day. We should rather start speaking about Communal Software.
Which view is correct, well, time will tell. But “LOSS” certainly has better marketing.
In the thread, the question was raised what a good name for “the opposite” might be. Of course I thought of “Communal Software”, but I wanted to go for a similar hackronym.
So with that context, I would like to present two new terms for your vocabulary:
- LOSS:
- Libertarian and Open Source Software.
- MOSS:
- Mutual(ly supportive) Open Source Software.
Of course, I am biased. But I like these terms. I’ll try to use them from now on.