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> If you make something open source, I can use your code to power my business "Open source" isn't a license. You're not allowed to just use any open source sof

by krono 5y ago

> If you make something open source, I can use your code to power my business "Open source" isn't a license. You're not allowed to just use any open source software that doesn't contain a license by default.

Denvercoder9 5y ago
The conventional definition of "open source" is software licensed under a OSI-approved license.
- krono 5y ago
  Does that mean general copyright does not apply to unlicensed open source software? Do any legal precedents exist related to this? I'm honestly curious now.
  - jefftk 5y ago
    "unlicensed open source software" isn't really a thing. If you push something to GitHub with no license it's source-available, not open source.
jefftk 5y ago
The standard definition of "open source" is https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd, which has: "Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria: ... The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research."
- krono 5y ago
  But if there's no license, it's not the license that restricts but common copyright law.
  - jefftk 5y ago
    If there's no license, then it's not open source. This is a term with a standard meaning, and it doesn't just mean that the source is available for reading
    - krono 5y ago
      Ah right, I honestly did not know! Still, if you come across some published source code that does not appear to be licensed and does not specifically define itself as being "Open Source" as defined by the "Open Source Initiative", copyright law applies and you're not allowed to just take it and use it. GitHub specifically uses the words "source code from publicly available sources" when talking about what they used to train their model on. As far as I'm aware public code repos aren't by default "Open Source" as defined by the "Open Source Initiative".
      - jefftk 5y ago
        Sorry, I was specifically responding to how my parent views open source. I agree that Copilot was probably trained in part on public code that isn't open source -- GitHub's claim (not saying I agree) is that they don't need a license to train on code.
        krono 5y ago
        No need to apologise! In this post's comment section alone many use the term "open source" but really mean to say "public-source", others use the two terms interchangeably even when they seem to be aware of the distinction, and then there are people who seem to think that by making your GitHub repo public it becomes OSD-spec "open source" and with that free to use. It's just so confusing and easy to misinterpret each-others' true meaning. Thanks for making me aware of the existence of that OSD OSS spec btw! Came across the (recovered) blog post where the term was first announced http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html.

by krono 5y ago

Denvercoder9 5y ago

The conventional definition of "open source" is software licensed under a OSI-approved license.

krono 5y ago
Does that mean general copyright does not apply to unlicensed open source software? Do any legal precedents exist related to this? I'm honestly curious now.
- jefftk 5y ago
  "unlicensed open source software" isn't really a thing. If you push something to GitHub with no license it's source-available, not open source.

jefftk 5y ago

The standard definition of "open source" is https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd, which has: "Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria: ... The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research."

krono 5y ago
But if there's no license, it's not the license that restricts but common copyright law.
- jefftk 5y ago
  If there's no license, then it's not open source. This is a term with a standard meaning, and it doesn't just mean that the source is available for reading
  - krono 5y ago
    Ah right, I honestly did not know! Still, if you come across some published source code that does not appear to be licensed and does not specifically define itself as being "Open Source" as defined by the "Open Source Initiative", copyright law applies and you're not allowed to just take it and use it. GitHub specifically uses the words "source code from publicly available sources" when talking about what they used to train their model on. As far as I'm aware public code repos aren't by default "Open Source" as defined by the "Open Source Initiative".
    - jefftk 5y ago
      Sorry, I was specifically responding to how my parent views open source. I agree that Copilot was probably trained in part on public code that isn't open source -- GitHub's claim (not saying I agree) is that they don't need a license to train on code.
      - krono 5y ago
        No need to apologise! In this post's comment section alone many use the term "open source" but really mean to say "public-source", others use the two terms interchangeably even when they seem to be aware of the distinction, and then there are people who seem to think that by making your GitHub repo public it becomes OSD-spec "open source" and with that free to use. It's just so confusing and easy to misinterpret each-others' true meaning. Thanks for making me aware of the existence of that OSD OSS spec btw! Came across the (recovered) blog post where the term was first announced http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html.