If we see free software as a movement, the rest of its properties follows naturally. the first uneasy point about free software for me , was the fact that it does not have clear enough definition. it has some principles but not in much detail. but then again free software is an idea and movement, not a licensing framework.
on the other hand open source is much more prescriptive and the licenses that go under open source are clearly stated.
although many may argue that name "free" is ambiguous and can have two, free as beer and free as freedom, meaning; I see the term "open source" much more unclear. having the source open and available is a must in both cases but it is not enough to make a software an "open source" software.
both of these two aim to extend freedom of user and ease the spread of information. and they are mostly very similar, but sometimes differences show up in detail of licenses. and I think for practical purposes, like publishing a software in current condition, compatibility and so on, open source gives better possibilities.
however I see more potential in free software, to generate and foster new ideas, and more adaptive to new circumstances. specially I believe that all the softwares we release as free and open source should go under permissive license like MIT which only requires mentioning the name and crediting the original authors and allows all kinds of use and modification, I personally see no point in forcing open source or free licenses to everyone.
>>there is a huge need to standardise these terms! they are extremely confusing and they have so many branches and derivatives(I guess this comes from freedom, anybody can define the license he/she feels right!)
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