4 ms·

A bunch of people here are conflating the concepts of "free software" and "open source". these are not the same. "Free" (as in speech, or beer) software is gove

A bunch of people here are conflating the concepts of "free software" and "open source". these are not the same. "Free" (as in speech, or beer) software is governed by the license it is published under. Open source simply refers to the fact that the source code is publicly available. Open source is a prerequisite for truly free (as in speech) software, but the opposite is not.

pie_flavor 5y ago
The court decision directly declares this false. The fact that AGPL+Commons makes code source-available (the source code is publicly available) but not open-source (https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd) is the false advertising claim in question. If you were to design a source-available nonfree product, and call it 'open source', this court would find you guilty of false advertising. Not that this should come as a surprise, as the OSI definition has every right to be authoritative, given that the people who started the OSI literally invented the term.
- teilo 5y ago
  No, that's not what the decision says. OSI is guilty of making claims that the court did not make, and they are adding needless confusion to the legal definitions of the terms "Open Source" and "Free". No court has ever ruled on a definitive meaning of "open source" that matches OSI's definition of the term. OSI is claiming that the term "open source" is what is false advertising. But both the trial and appellate courts are specifically calling out the phrase "open source and free" as false advertising. Neo4j EE and ONgDB may be "open source," but they are definitely not "free." If the defendants had only claimed that ONgDB was "open source" they might not have had any issues. But because they removed the Commons Clause and also declared it "free," they are in violation of the original license of Neo4J EE, a license which is still in force, and a license which is not "free."
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Look at that, there's one other person in this post that knows what's really going on.
  - pie_flavor 5y ago
    Sure they're free. I can get them for $0. If that statement is wrong, then 'open source just means source-available' is also wrong, for the same reasons. People who release OSI 'open source' software call it open source, people like GitHub who talk about licenses use OSI's definition, and people who release closed-source-available software clarify that it's not 'open source', using those words. The only people who treat 'open source' as meaning 'source available' are people who say 'free software' and want you to too. And when you say 'free and open-source', the 'free' in that phrase does mean $0 - you wouldn't need 'open-source' if free meant FSF 'free' and open-source meant source-available, because FSF 'free' software requires source availability, so 'and open source' would be redundant. Therefore you can either interpret FOSS as meaning $0 and source-available, or $0 and OSI 'open source'. The former would not have been false advertising, as it is in fact $0 and source-available. Therefore the interpretation the court is going with almost certainly involves OSI 'open source'.
    - teilo 5y ago
      The "Free" in "FOSS" has never meant $0. That's a possible and common consequence of "free," but not its definition. In fact, "free" does not necessarily imply $0. I can take an MIT licensed codebase, compile it, and sell it, and break no license. I am "free" to sell this code and products derived therefrom. I am also "free" to give it away. But what I cannot do is take a piece of software that is not "free" and advertise that it is free. That's what's going on here.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - pie_flavor 5y ago
        The point of the post you're replying to is that you cannot simultaneously act like 'free software' has one canonical definition which the software definitely violates, while 'open source software' is the nebulous one which doesn't necessarily mean anything more than its availability in source form. If 'open source' doesn't have to mean what everyone who actually uses it means by it, then neither does 'free software'; if 'open source' can just mean source-available then 'free software' can just mean software for $0; if advertising your software as 'free' is false advertising if you're explicitly violating the FSF's definition, then advertising your software as 'open source' is false advertising if you're explicitly violating the OSI's definition.
- giantg2 5y ago
  "If you were to design a source-available nonfree product, and call it 'open source', this court would find you guilty of false advertising." It's not really about any of that. If you read the court opinion, it's basically copyright protection infringement on the basis that someone copied a product and changed the licensing in violation of the original license. The false advertising claim is on the basis that the duplicate software is free and open source, because it can't be free and open source if the original license forbade that.
  - pie_flavor 5y ago
    The original license is AGPL with an added non-commercial clause. To say 'the original license forbade that', where 'that' is being FOSS, is to either agree with me, or to claim that the court is instead offering opinion on what constitutes 'free', which is five times as loaded as 'open source'.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - giantg2 5y ago
      This is a false dichotomy. I don't have to agree with you as the elements of your example are substantially different from the case, leaving other possible outcomes. This ruling does not create precedent on the definition of open source. The court is addressing the violations of the terms of the license and the misrepresentation of being a drop in replacement. Can you quote the ruling where it defines open source, or Open Source? There are several definitions in the dictionary and OSI is only one of them. There is still debate in many communities about whether open source and a noncommercial clause are compatible or not. That's not something the court needs to look at in this case.
      - pie_flavor 5y ago
        They specifically cite the misrepresentation of the software as 'free and open source', they specifically say it's literally false as opposed to simply misleading, and they specifically say it's because they couldn't remove the Commons Clause. That means they are, in fact, judging whether the definition of free and open source includes the Commons Clause, and specifically judging that it doesn't. Either that means they're judging 'open source', or they're judging 'free', or 'free and open source' is its own third term that doesn't quite mean either.
senkora 5y ago
freeware != free software ~= open source != source available
- senkora 5y ago
  Not sure why the downvotes; the above is true.
rectang 5y ago
> Open source simply refers to the fact that the source code is publicly available. That's "source available". "Open Source" is widely understood to mean a bunch more, captured in the "Open Source Definition": https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
- kube-system 5y ago
  "Open source" is not a legal trademark of OSI. The idea that "open source" means what OSI says it means is purely an opinion.
  - rectang 5y ago
    Yeah, but if you try to bullshit a proprietary license as "open source" you're going to catch hell from a whole lot of people. It's not just the OSI that has a stake in the OSD. A few companies have tried it and backed off.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      Yes, you will get criticism, depending on the circumstances. If it's proprietary, sure, if it's public domain, probably not.
      - remram 5y ago
        If it's public domain then it is open source as per the OSI definition.
        rectang 5y ago
        Replace "public domain" with "CC0" and it's a fair point. OSI hasn't approved CC0, and it's worth questioning how important OSI's whitelist is, or whether they should be the ones curating it. But everybody kinda knows that CC0 is more or less in the spirit of the OSD (so long as there are no patents involved) and OSI doesn't go around hollering about it, because it's not that important. As opposed to the Commons Clause, and other historical attempts to undermine "open source" as being nothing more than "source available" — those are battles worth fighting. The OSD is more important than OSI. If OSI were ever to change the OSD in a substantive way, there would be a huge revolt against them.

pie_flavor 5y ago

The court decision directly declares this false. The fact that AGPL+Commons makes code source-available (the source code is publicly available) but not open-source (https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd) is the false advertising claim in question. If you were to design a source-available nonfree product, and call it 'open source', this court would find you guilty of false advertising. Not that this should come as a surprise, as the OSI definition has every right to be authoritative, given that the people who started the OSI literally invented the term.

teilo 5y ago
No, that's not what the decision says. OSI is guilty of making claims that the court did not make, and they are adding needless confusion to the legal definitions of the terms "Open Source" and "Free". No court has ever ruled on a definitive meaning of "open source" that matches OSI's definition of the term. OSI is claiming that the term "open source" is what is false advertising. But both the trial and appellate courts are specifically calling out the phrase "open source and free" as false advertising. Neo4j EE and ONgDB may be "open source," but they are definitely not "free." If the defendants had only claimed that ONgDB was "open source" they might not have had any issues. But because they removed the Commons Clause and also declared it "free," they are in violation of the original license of Neo4J EE, a license which is still in force, and a license which is not "free."
- giantg2 5y ago
  Look at that, there's one other person in this post that knows what's really going on.
- pie_flavor 5y ago
  Sure they're free. I can get them for $0. If that statement is wrong, then 'open source just means source-available' is also wrong, for the same reasons. People who release OSI 'open source' software call it open source, people like GitHub who talk about licenses use OSI's definition, and people who release closed-source-available software clarify that it's not 'open source', using those words. The only people who treat 'open source' as meaning 'source available' are people who say 'free software' and want you to too. And when you say 'free and open-source', the 'free' in that phrase does mean $0 - you wouldn't need 'open-source' if free meant FSF 'free' and open-source meant source-available, because FSF 'free' software requires source availability, so 'and open source' would be redundant. Therefore you can either interpret FOSS as meaning $0 and source-available, or $0 and OSI 'open source'. The former would not have been false advertising, as it is in fact $0 and source-available. Therefore the interpretation the court is going with almost certainly involves OSI 'open source'.
  - teilo 5y ago
    The "Free" in "FOSS" has never meant $0. That's a possible and common consequence of "free," but not its definition. In fact, "free" does not necessarily imply $0. I can take an MIT licensed codebase, compile it, and sell it, and break no license. I am "free" to sell this code and products derived therefrom. I am also "free" to give it away. But what I cannot do is take a piece of software that is not "free" and advertise that it is free. That's what's going on here.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - pie_flavor 5y ago
      The point of the post you're replying to is that you cannot simultaneously act like 'free software' has one canonical definition which the software definitely violates, while 'open source software' is the nebulous one which doesn't necessarily mean anything more than its availability in source form. If 'open source' doesn't have to mean what everyone who actually uses it means by it, then neither does 'free software'; if 'open source' can just mean source-available then 'free software' can just mean software for $0; if advertising your software as 'free' is false advertising if you're explicitly violating the FSF's definition, then advertising your software as 'open source' is false advertising if you're explicitly violating the OSI's definition.
giantg2 5y ago
"If you were to design a source-available nonfree product, and call it 'open source', this court would find you guilty of false advertising." It's not really about any of that. If you read the court opinion, it's basically copyright protection infringement on the basis that someone copied a product and changed the licensing in violation of the original license. The false advertising claim is on the basis that the duplicate software is free and open source, because it can't be free and open source if the original license forbade that.
- pie_flavor 5y ago
  The original license is AGPL with an added non-commercial clause. To say 'the original license forbade that', where 'that' is being FOSS, is to either agree with me, or to claim that the court is instead offering opinion on what constitutes 'free', which is five times as loaded as 'open source'.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - giantg2 5y ago
    This is a false dichotomy. I don't have to agree with you as the elements of your example are substantially different from the case, leaving other possible outcomes. This ruling does not create precedent on the definition of open source. The court is addressing the violations of the terms of the license and the misrepresentation of being a drop in replacement. Can you quote the ruling where it defines open source, or Open Source? There are several definitions in the dictionary and OSI is only one of them. There is still debate in many communities about whether open source and a noncommercial clause are compatible or not. That's not something the court needs to look at in this case.
    - pie_flavor 5y ago
      They specifically cite the misrepresentation of the software as 'free and open source', they specifically say it's literally false as opposed to simply misleading, and they specifically say it's because they couldn't remove the Commons Clause. That means they are, in fact, judging whether the definition of free and open source includes the Commons Clause, and specifically judging that it doesn't. Either that means they're judging 'open source', or they're judging 'free', or 'free and open source' is its own third term that doesn't quite mean either.

senkora 5y ago

freeware != free software ~= open source != source available

senkora 5y ago
Not sure why the downvotes; the above is true.

rectang 5y ago

> Open source simply refers to the fact that the source code is publicly available. That's "source available". "Open Source" is widely understood to mean a bunch more, captured in the "Open Source Definition": https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd

kube-system 5y ago
"Open source" is not a legal trademark of OSI. The idea that "open source" means what OSI says it means is purely an opinion.
- rectang 5y ago
  Yeah, but if you try to bullshit a proprietary license as "open source" you're going to catch hell from a whole lot of people. It's not just the OSI that has a stake in the OSD. A few companies have tried it and backed off.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Yes, you will get criticism, depending on the circumstances. If it's proprietary, sure, if it's public domain, probably not.
    - remram 5y ago
      If it's public domain then it is open source as per the OSI definition.
      - rectang 5y ago
        Replace "public domain" with "CC0" and it's a fair point. OSI hasn't approved CC0, and it's worth questioning how important OSI's whitelist is, or whether they should be the ones curating it. But everybody kinda knows that CC0 is more or less in the spirit of the OSD (so long as there are no patents involved) and OSI doesn't go around hollering about it, because it's not that important. As opposed to the Commons Clause, and other historical attempts to undermine "open source" as being nothing more than "source available" — those are battles worth fighting. The OSD is more important than OSI. If OSI were ever to change the OSD in a substantive way, there would be a huge revolt against them.