Bonum Certa Men Certa

Leak: FSFE and OSI Coordinate Rubbing Off Free Software by Saying “Open Source” is the Same (It's Not, Same False Argument From 20 Years Earlier)

Many men in table football



Summary: Three years ago the 20-year anniversary of an attack on Free software (which an OSI founder and high-profile boosters said was a plan to dethrone Richard Stallman) was secretly exploited by the FSFE in coordination with OSI leadership

TODAY we present an E-mail which exposes coordination between OSI/"Open Source" (and OSI President Simon Phipps) and the FSFE, undoing much of the work of the FSF while painting the FSF as unreasonable or even radical. We let the readers decide for themselves, but we're adding some thoughts of members of ours, who saw the E-mail prior to this publication.



This happened months after the trademark dispute (FSF demanding that FSFE stops misusing the "FSF" name). "For most practical purposes," Ryan explains, "Free and Open Source mean the same thing, but Open Source doesn't emphasize in making sure it stays available under the same terms. So any changes made under a proprietary license are simply useless to everyone else and lost forever if it gets discontinued. It can also be turned against the user in all sorts of horrible and twisted ways, like Apple did to create macOS and iOS."

“...call it Hegelian brainwashing, or hermetic mergers for purposes of deception, not limited to software licenses...”
      --Anonymous
"The FSF used to say if it's trivial," Ryan continues, "as in <150 lines of code, or implements something that is an open specification that we're trying to encourage adoption of, or there's already lots of proprietary implementations out there, sometimes a more permissive license does more good than harm."

Matthias Kirschner, who recently accepted money from Microsoft, sent the following message, alluding to the OSI's President at the time (Simon Phipps), showing how they coordinated statements on "Free Software and Open Source Software" (if they mean it, FSFE should just rename/rebrand as OSIE, or maybe replace the O with an M now that it's partly Microsoft funded... to became MSIE). Here's the E-mail in question, citing a blog post from Phipps, published 5 days after the FSF had sent a message concerning the FSFE's violation of the 2005 agreement:

Subject: Joint Statement about "Free Software and Open Source Software" Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 15:55:17 +0100 From: Matthias Kirschner <mk@fsfe.org> To: team@lists.fsfe.org

Hello all,

after a discussion on the legal network mailing list, which resulted in my blog post http://k7r.eu/2-percent-discussion-free-software-or-open-source-software/ and then in longer discussions on https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2017-November/011994.html and individual follow-up, Simon Phipps and I had the idea to use the upcmming 20th anniversary of the term "Open Source" on 9 February 2018 for a joint statement.

We would clarify for newcomers that it is the same software. Encourage everybody to work with others although they might use another terminology. Show them that even organisations which use different terms can work together. Simon is positive that he gets support by others in OSI about that, and I thought that we will also agree on this, as it it will be mainly a repetition of our official statement: https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/comparison.en.html (we might add some arguments from my blog post above + parts of Simon's articles: https://webmink.com/essays/causality/ https://meshedinsights.com/2017/06/07/free-vs-open/ ).

I would continue to discuss that idea with Simon Phipps so we could get such a statement ready in time, and get other organisations on board, too. I'll share any text drafts here before.

Best Regards, Matthias

-- Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany | t +49-30-27595290 Registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg, VR 17030 | (fsfe.org/join) Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) - Weblog (k7r.eu/blog.html) _______________________________________________ Team mailing list Team@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/team


The better informed Free software proponents will immediately understand what's going on here. They are, in effect, doing exactly the opposite of what the FSF would do. Under the guise of 'peace' of whatnot they sort of bury the original brand. No wonder not too long after that an FSF Board member (Ben) said that they need to further distance themselves from this "Open Source" lunacy, which was already opening up to proprietary software giants, including Microsoft.

As one person has just put it in IRC, "they do seem purposely trying to muddy the waters... call it Hegelian brainwashing, or hermetic mergers for purposes of deception, not limited to software licenses... I think it's used for many many many things..."

“Permissive licenses harm the Free Software Movement in general...”
      --Ryan
"Show them that even organisations which use different terms can work together" is the part he was alluding to. They're basically trying to paint the FSF as irrational, hostile zealots. When it is in fact the FSF that's under attack, along with the term Free (as in freedom) software. The person argues that "his [Kirschner's] "different terms" strikes me as disingenuous, i.e. trying to convince people [that] different terms are actually the same... people might think I'm too harsh, but to me, there's no other word except attempted brainwashing, also known as EEE of course..."

The merger is even broader than the above, as we shall show in a separate leak.

"Permissive licenses harm the Free Software Movement in general," Ryan notes, "although sometimes that harm is outweighed by the benefit of solving a bigger problem. If Microsoft swallows FLAC and Opus and AV1, more people will use it. That helps us if they grab it and use it. In general, just giving them software to pick over that would make Windows or Office or Azure work better sets us back."

“...whether you are pro or against something, when the waters are muddied it's difficult to even have a conversation... after things get warped.”
      --Anonymous
The move was explained as follows in IRC: "embrace a word, extend its meaning to what you want it to mean, extinguish the original definition, destroy by "merging" with something of [a] different meaning [...] it annoys me to no end, because whether you are pro or against something, when the waters are muddied it's difficult to even have a conversation... after things get warped. If successful, it means future people are both just attacking or praising straw men basically [and] it destroys any possible debate..."

Not only the OSI and the FSFE 'colluded' in this agenda, as future leaks will show. That helps explain why particular statements were made one year ago when media shifted attention from a Gates/Epstein MIT scandal to a bogus RMS/MIT scandal (over a misquoted/misinterpreted E-mail).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Alleged Layoffs at IBM Consulting in Australia
IBM loses many government contracts these days
The Rumours Were Likely True: Sixth Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in 2025 (Days After "50" Anniversary and About 5,000 Layoffs)
5 hours ago, by Ashley Stewart
IBM and MCC: Layoffs Coming Again to Metro Connect Company Limited (MCC) as Tariffs Bite and IBM's Shares Fall
Blacklists applicable to Chinese suppliers also mean that IBM can no longer cooperate with key partners in Asia
Go Static
Please don't Go(lang) or JavaScript or PHP or...
Keeping Track of Microsoft Layoffs in 2025
So here's a quick roundup of 2025
The Sixth Anniversary of the Lightweight Alternative to the Web (Gemini Protocol)
Now 11 short of 3,000 active capsules. 65 short of 4,500 total.
People Are Sick of LLM Slop. Offer Them Alternatives.
We never used LLM slop for anything and we never will
 
Microsoft's "Linux" Foundation Pays Writers to Publish Propaganda and Then LLM Slop Sites (Slopfarms) Repeat the Propaganda, Using Microsoft LLMs
consider the latest LLM slop
Once You Slop You Can't Stop and If You're a Serial Slopper Nobody Will Believe You Really Wrote an Article (Even If You Did)
It's a lot like, "if you're a serial liar people won't believe you even when you say some truth" (or "once a cheater, always a cheater")
Pressing Against SLAPPs (From Americans Who Strangle Women While Microsoft Pays Their Salaries) is a High Priority for Us
We also need to ensure that greedy firms/people that facilitate the SLAPPs get "disbarred" or "struck off"
Mozilla Firefox Already Down to 1% in Brazil
Don't people crave the surveillance and the slop?
Links 10/04/2025: Hardware, Politics, and Internet
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/04/2025: Creativity and Agitation, Life in the USA, CSS Naked Day 2025
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 09, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 09, 2025
Malware in Proprietary Software - Latest Additions
Original by Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Links 09/04/2025: More Trade Wars and Wars, Chinese Army Troops Found Fighting in Ukraine
Links for the day
Linux Clickbait by Slop
Give it up for Brian Fagioli, the Serial Slopper
Microsoft's Entire Premise for Its Future Existence Goes Up in Flames
32 minutes ago
GNU/Linux on a High in Colombia
Stereotypes much?
Techrights Be Like...
K.I.S.S.
Gemini Links 09/04/2025: Autism, Cybersecurity, and LLMs Attacking Services Online
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Would be Measured at Over 5% Globally (by statCounter) Had the Data in India Not Been Changed
GNU/Linux grew a lot in many countries and has expanded since then
Links 09/04/2025: Quartz Fires All Writers (Shutdown, LLM Slop or Slopfarm Instead), "Bitcoin Is Crashing Hard"
Links for the day
Web Surveyor statCounter Sees Apple's macOS Falling From 5.6% to 3.6% in Two Months, It Might Soon be Smaller Than GNU/Linux
Apple's "value" (faked, exaggerated) is back to "pandemic times"
UK House of Lords Recognises the SLAPP Issue in the UK and EFF Pursues "Bill (That) Could Put A Stop To Censorship By Lawsuit" in the US
"A House of Lords inquiry into how the news industry can survive into the future has accused the government of “failing to prioritise” action on strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs)."
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: Seeking Class Action Against the OSI
"LETTER SEEKING CLASS ACTION REPRESENTATION"
The Value of Slop, by Alexandre Oliva
Original by Alexandre Oliva
Gemini Links 09/04/2025: Neocities, Tinylogs, and Inter-community Protocols
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 08, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 08, 2025
You Can Be an A--hole to Women (Even Strangle Women) as Long as You Work for Microsoft
Recalling the Mark Shuttleworth origin story
Canonical is a Proprietary Software Reseller With a 'Debian Base'
"Canonical Ubuntu" is just Debian with some proprietary things sold on top of it
statCounter Sees Microsoft Bing at Lowest Level Since Last Summer
Since 2023 Bing has repeatedly had layoffs
Nearly 5,000 Microsoft Layoffs Disclosed on Week of Microsoft 'Anniversary' (Media Noise), The HR Digest Says More Layoffs Coming
more "Microsoft layoffs on the horizon"
Windows "Market Share" Down to 1% in Sudan, Based on statCounter
Among those 1% who use Windows to access the Web fewer than 30% are on Vista 11
People Who Facilitate Truth Will Always Win at the End
"Just always stick to the truth"
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, linuxsecurity.com, "Cyber Security News" and More LLM Slopfarms
So the Web has this bunch of slopfarms pretending to "cover" GNU/Linux
Links 08/04/2025: More Mass Layoffs Expected at Microsoft (Gaming), Fentanylware (TikTok) Unsold
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/04/2025: "Shared Ownership" and Rant About Scrapers
Links for the day
Links 08/04/2025: Microsoft Shrinking, Oracle's Clown Computing Cracked
Links for the day
Walmart Vizio TVs Scream At Immigrants to Leave America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Stolen Credit Card and LinkedIn. DHS Spies on Immigrant Social Media.
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
How Corporations Such as Microsoft Try to Crush Critics and Dissolve Activism
Stay focused
Wikipedia Can Lower Its Hosting Bill by Going More Static, Not Just by Caching, But It Would Not Solve Its Biggest Problems (Bribes and AstroTurfing)
For about 15 years we had a Wiki in this site
At 50, Microsoft Has Over 100 Billion Dollars in Debt and Less Than 25% "Market Share" (Windows)
statCounter basically sees less than a quarter of Web requests coming from Windows
linuxhint.com Died 12 Months Ago (After Adopting Image Slop)
Zombie sites
LLM Slop Will Eventually Stop Due to High Costs, Worse Training Sets (Polluted Models Ingesting Their Own Junk), and No Real Returns
This too shall pass
Urgent Need for SLAPP Litigation Transparency
Microsofters really want to shut us up
Courage is Contagious
I became a witness to acts of great courage from EPO examiners
On Shutdowns and 2,000 More Layoffs at Microsoft (10,000 Microsoft Staff May Have Already Been Laid Off in 2025)
Microsoft tries to hide and belittle mass layoffs; its data centre business also flounders, so it issues puff pieces about some anniversary over and over again
Gemini Links 08/04/2025: Gabbro 0.1.4 and Disillusioned With Social Control Media
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows in Jordan: From 99% Down to 10%
This is becoming more "normal"
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: A "Deep Dive" Into the Complaint at the California Privacy Protection Agency
There are many facets to it and it may be the first complaint of several
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, April 07, 2025