Comparison with Open Source software

While on a practical level Open Source Software and Free Software share the same licenses, according to the FSF, the Open Source movement is philosophically distinct from the free software movement. It began in 1998 with a group of people, notably Eric S. Raymond and Bruce Perens, who formed the Open Source Initiative (OSI). They sought to (1) bring a higher profile to the practical benefits of sharing software source code, and (2) to interest major software houses and other high-tech industry companies in the concept. These advocates see the term open source as avoiding the ambiguity of the English word "free" in free software. The term "open source" was coined by Christine Peterson of the Foresight Institute think tank. It was registered to act as a trade mark for free software products.
Many people recognize a qualitative benefit to the software development process when a program's source code can be used, modified and redistributed by developers. (See also The Cathedral and the Bazaar.) The free software movement places primary emphasis on the moral or ethical aspects of software, seeing technical excellence as a desirable by-product of its ethical standard. The Open Source movement sees technical excellence as the primary goal, regarding source code sharing as a means to an end. As such, the FSF distances itself both from the Open Source movement and from the term "Open Source".