4 ms·

You have a right to distribute the software you right under any terms you wish. If you are sick of tech giants using free software without giving back, then you

You have a right to distribute the software you right under any terms you wish. If you are sick of tech giants using free software without giving back, then you're entitled to use some other licensing model. But you cannot change the meaning of free software. The terms "free software" and "open source" have a specific meaning in the software ecosystem. The former is defined by the Free Software Definition and the latter by the Open Source Definition, respectively published by the FSF and OSI. These definitions both require that the software is available for commercial use without restriction, among other things. These terms do not need to be trademarked to make their misuse wrong, in the same way that advertising cakes when you actually sell pizzas is wrong. Making cakes is fine, and making pizzas is fine, but a pizza store misleading its customers because they want to get in on the cake market is not fine. The success of free and open source software attracts those who wish to reap its benefits without agreeing to its terms. This is wrong, and needs to stop. You cannot have a commercial monopoly over your FOSS projects; if you insist on one, then your projects are not FOSS. https://drewdevault.com/2021/01/20/FOSS-is-to-surrender-your-monopoly.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/01/20/FOSS-is-to-surrender-your...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chrisseaton 5y ago
Maybe we should say 'OSI Certified' instead of 'open source'.
kongin 5y ago
>The terms "free software" and "open source" have a specific meaning in the software ecosystem. The former is defined by the Free Software Definition and the latter by the Open Source Definition, respectively published by the FSF and OSI. These definitions both require that the software is available for commercial use without restriction, among other things. Problem: The OSI did not coin the term 'open source'. OSI partisans claim that Christine Peterson coined the term at a strategy meeting in Palo Alto on 3 February 1998. However, the term and the concept was well known prior to that. Martin Tournoij does a decent enough job of collecting prior citations [1] that go all the way back to 1990. All the OSI did was take an existing philosophy, scribble some new restrictions in crayon, and called it Open Source(tm)(c)(pat. pending). Honestly, though, I do love it when this comes up. It gives me the opportunity to irk new guys telling them that Lyle Ball, head of public relations at Caldera, has an earlier citation than the OSI in the form of a press-release announcing Caldera OpenDOS[2][3]. :D [1] https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html [2] http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html [3] http://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pc/caldera/OpenDOS.701/license.txt http://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pc/caldera/OpenDOS.701/license.tx... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26504021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26504021
- ddevault 5y ago
  True, but the term has evolved nonetheless, and its present meaning is related to the OSI. Language evolves. I would argue that this definition has settled upon a useful, objective meaning, and that its utility ought to be preserved by using new terms (or other, existing terms, like "source available") rather than trying to force its further "evolution" in whatever direction happens to be convenient for your project and/or commercial interest.
  - gpm 5y ago
    I would and do argue that the vast majority of people, and even the majority of software developers, have never heard of the OSI's pet definition of the words "open source" and use the naive (and incidentally pre-existing) definition of "source is open for public viewing".
  - kongin 5y ago
    >and its present meaning is related to the OSI Not unless you work for the OSI, least you forget they actually tried to get it patented and got rejected: https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.php https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p... I'm happy for OSI proponents to use the legally approved version of licenses that support their ideology as OSI approved licenses. I will keep using open source to means software where the source code is open, as has been the case since the 80s and 90s, the latter of which I was around to use before OSI popped up and tried to privatize language for their own benefit.
  - arp242 5y ago
    The problem with "open source" is that it has a fairly obvious meaning: it uses the noun "source", which is what everyone uses to describe source code, and combines it with the very common adjective "open" that's used for all sorts of things and generally means "has access to". You can educate millions and millions of people to steer them away from the obvious meaning to the specific meaning, but "Free Software" has been trying to do that for a lot longer with extremely limited success. Overall, it seems like a distraction to me, and if you want to promote Free Software/Open Source then there are more effective ways to do that than argueing semantics. Also, IMHO "source available" is probably a necessary stepping stone to open source in the grand scheme of things. If all software would be source available tomorrow then this would be a huge win: election machines can be audited, we will know how good (or bad) government software is, I can judge software from Company X before deciding to do business with them, I can fix bugs that are a huge issue for me myself instead of just asking "please fix this bug that's a huge deal for me", etc. etc. After this we can move on further.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

chrisseaton 5y ago

Maybe we should say 'OSI Certified' instead of 'open source'.

kongin 5y ago

>The terms "free software" and "open source" have a specific meaning in the software ecosystem. The former is defined by the Free Software Definition and the latter by the Open Source Definition, respectively published by the FSF and OSI. These definitions both require that the software is available for commercial use without restriction, among other things. Problem: The OSI did not coin the term 'open source'. OSI partisans claim that Christine Peterson coined the term at a strategy meeting in Palo Alto on 3 February 1998. However, the term and the concept was well known prior to that. Martin Tournoij does a decent enough job of collecting prior citations [1] that go all the way back to 1990. All the OSI did was take an existing philosophy, scribble some new restrictions in crayon, and called it Open Source(tm)(c)(pat. pending). Honestly, though, I do love it when this comes up. It gives me the opportunity to irk new guys telling them that Lyle Ball, head of public relations at Caldera, has an earlier citation than the OSI in the form of a press-release announcing Caldera OpenDOS[2][3]. :D [1] https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html [2] http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html [3] http://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pc/caldera/OpenDOS.701/license.txt http://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pc/caldera/OpenDOS.701/license.tx... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26504021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26504021

ddevault 5y ago
True, but the term has evolved nonetheless, and its present meaning is related to the OSI. Language evolves. I would argue that this definition has settled upon a useful, objective meaning, and that its utility ought to be preserved by using new terms (or other, existing terms, like "source available") rather than trying to force its further "evolution" in whatever direction happens to be convenient for your project and/or commercial interest.
- gpm 5y ago
  I would and do argue that the vast majority of people, and even the majority of software developers, have never heard of the OSI's pet definition of the words "open source" and use the naive (and incidentally pre-existing) definition of "source is open for public viewing".
- kongin 5y ago
  >and its present meaning is related to the OSI Not unless you work for the OSI, least you forget they actually tried to get it patented and got rejected: https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.php https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p... I'm happy for OSI proponents to use the legally approved version of licenses that support their ideology as OSI approved licenses. I will keep using open source to means software where the source code is open, as has been the case since the 80s and 90s, the latter of which I was around to use before OSI popped up and tried to privatize language for their own benefit.
- arp242 5y ago
  The problem with "open source" is that it has a fairly obvious meaning: it uses the noun "source", which is what everyone uses to describe source code, and combines it with the very common adjective "open" that's used for all sorts of things and generally means "has access to". You can educate millions and millions of people to steer them away from the obvious meaning to the specific meaning, but "Free Software" has been trying to do that for a lot longer with extremely limited success. Overall, it seems like a distraction to me, and if you want to promote Free Software/Open Source then there are more effective ways to do that than argueing semantics. Also, IMHO "source available" is probably a necessary stepping stone to open source in the grand scheme of things. If all software would be source available tomorrow then this would be a huge win: election machines can be audited, we will know how good (or bad) government software is, I can judge software from Company X before deciding to do business with them, I can fix bugs that are a huge issue for me myself instead of just asking "please fix this bug that's a huge deal for me", etc. etc. After this we can move on further.