To most people, Free and Open Source Software are the same thing. Some for over-simplification, some for ignorance. But Free Software is a philosophical approach as old as software itself, as most of the software in the 50s and 60s was written within academia and shared freely like all proper scientific discoveries should. Even as early as 1953 the operating system for the UNIVAC version A-2 was fully FOSS (free and open source software). It was only in the late 60s that the cost of development became high enough that software began to be seen as a market in itself and the first proprietary software came to be. In 1976 Bill Gates wrote the first treatise in defense of proprietary software (the Open Letter to Hobbyists), where he argued that copying Micro-Soft's Altair BASIC without a license was stealing.
The fact is people kept sharing and proprietary software never had 100% of acceptance, but it became a huge business model nonetheless. So in 1985 Richard Stallman published his own treatise, the GNU Manifesto, with views of getting rid of AT&T's grip on UNIX and creating a new operating system that was free to use and modify (which of course implied that the source code should also be fully open). The following year the Free Software Foundation would be created and, with it, the Free Software Definition - software that ensures that the end users have freedom in using, studying, sharing and modifying it.
1992 would see the creation of Stallman's dream when Linus Torvalds decided to publish his Linux kernel, which he had open sourced as soon as created, under the GNU General Public License. This was the first time that GNU was a complete software stack, as it finally had a free, open kernel to run on. GNU/Linux (simply Linux to most of us) was born.
This is when things became confusing.
GNU/Linux was too interesting to pass and would soon attract commercial interest. But Free Software was "tainted" by Stallman's license, which, by being nonrestrictive, restricted commercial usage of it (or so went the argument by 1997/1998). When Netscape decided to publish their Communicator openly, a few members of the Free Software movement saw this as a decisive moment to jump in and come up with a more pragmatic/less broad definition that could appeal to commercial software while still making the source code fully available. this Open Source Definition would give birth to the Netscape Public License, effectively the first Open Source License. Stallman objected that the focus on Open Source meant most philosophical debate was being ignored (and he was right) - but an uneasy alliance would soon form - 1998 was also the year of the infamous Halloween Documents - once again, Microsoft (no dash by now) would seriously attack the Free/Open Source scene.
In the end, both pragmatic and idealistic approaches have their own merits - Open Source attracted many players to the field and Free Software has kept it honest - but both have their shortcomings. The debate will not go away anytime soon - GPL 3 and its push against DRM has made some interesting enemies likes Linus Torvalds himself - but all have to gain with Free/Libre Open Source Software, whatever narrow or broad definition you want to give it.
In the end, both pragmatic and idealistic approaches have their own merits - Open Source attracted many players to the field and Free Software has kept it honest - but both have their shortcomings. The debate will not go away anytime soon - GPL 3 and its push against DRM has made some interesting enemies likes Linus Torvalds himself - but all have to gain with Free/Libre Open Source Software, whatever narrow or broad definition you want to give it.
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