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Discussion on: How do you explain open source to people who lack a programming background?

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edA‑qa mort‑ora‑y

Compare it to open access research. It's not about doing work for free, it's about making the results public, and sharing your research. "Open" is about granting everybody access, as opposed to keeping secrets. It's let people know how a product works.

If he hooked onto the "free" argument perhaps you described "free software" as opposed to "open software".