Alternative terms for free software, such asopen source,FOSS, and FLOSS, have been a recurring issue amongfree and open-source software users from the late 1990s onwards. These terms share almost identicallicence criteria anddevelopment practices.

In 1983Richard Stallman launched thefree software movement and founded theFree Software Foundation to promote the movement and to publish its owndefinition. Others have published alternative definitions offree software, notably theDebian Free Software Guidelines. In 1998,Bruce Perens andEric S. Raymond began a campaign to marketopen-source software and founded theOpen Source Initiative, which espoused different goals and a different philosophy from Stallman's. (Full article...)