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> By definition, open source software is not sold - it is given to the world for free. Is it? I thought open-source was a "business friendly" wording of free s

> By definition, open source software is not sold - it is given to the world for free. Is it? I thought open-source was a "business friendly" wording of free software. That is, the source code is made available, independent of what price (perhaps gratis) the author decides to distribute it. "Free as in freedom, not free as in beer" and all that. Am I missing something or did the OSI change the meaning to include that the sale price must be 0?

n4r9 3y ago
I believe the "open" in open source means "publicly accessible". The concept of "free" is a bit stronger, and grants the user rights to modify and redistribute (unless they do so under a proprietary licence).
- mananaysiempre 3y ago
  The Open Source Initiative doesn’t and never did, and its founder (ESR) invented the phrase, having forked the Open Source Definition from the Debian Free Software Guidelines. (Before that, the common term was “sourceware”, and it was in fact somewhat vague as to what counts or not. It’s all but forgotten now, except for the website formerly maintained by Cygnus Support.) Even the 2000s “Linux is a cancer” Microsoft chose to invent the term “shared source” rather than attempt to dilute “open source” when they publicly released some source code for academic and noncommercial use. (They still faced accusations of terminology confusion, which might well have been true.) In that respect, the recent attempts at redefinition by Mongo, Elastic, et al. are a truly novel strategy.
  - cxr 3y ago
    Weird when a comment tries to dispel a common but annoying presumption not supported by the record, but the attempt at debunking itself contains relies on similar presumptions that lead to claims that are counter to what we know is true. > its founder (ESR) invented the phrase No, Raymond was at the meeting where it was coined, and he enthusiastically helped popularize the term. Christine Peterson invented it.
    - mananaysiempre 3y ago
      > Raymond was at the meeting where [“open source”] was coined, and he enthusiastically helped popularize the term. Christine Peterson invented it. I wanted to grump about this not being written down, but even the OSI history page[1] mentions it. Huh. Thanks! [1] https://opensource.org/history/ https://opensource.org/history/
  - n4r9 3y ago
    I stand corrected. Is it true nevertheless that open source software must make its source code publicly available? And that "free" is generally stronger than "open"?
    - seba_dos1 3y ago
      For all practical purposes, the terms "free software" and "open source" are equivalent - the difference is political (which still matters of course). The source code doesn't have to be publicly available with either, but every user must have access to it on request and they may redistribute it, so practically it usually becomes publicly available anyway.
    - pabs3 3y ago
      This is incorrect, the OSD doesn't require that the source code be public, just that it be available to the same people the compiled binaries of the software is available to. https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
    - redwood 3y ago
      There is a spectrum of perspectives on this topic. The "free software" maximalist side would argue that there are two ideas, free "as in beer" and free "as in freedom"... and they will typically say that anything that isn't free "as in freedom" does not conform to their view of what is in the spirit of open source. Then there's the other side of the perspective which argues that open source is being strip-mined by hyperscalers and that new licenses with very specific classes of restrictions aimed at protecting the developers are needed. That latter group typically would argue that the OSI is realistically controlled by the hyperscalers and hence it's all quite nuanced. It's a classic political debate with extremes on all sides and the rest of us having to survive somewhere in the middle
Strom 3y ago
The Free Software Foundation has the following to say. [1] > Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding. > Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. So this “no selling” talk is defintely a diverging perspective and does not apply to all open source licenses. In fact I think it can’t apply to any, because commercial use is a freedom that would be restricted if it were true. —- [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  You are required, as that page notes, to include the source code at no additional charge whenever you sell or otherwise distribute the software. Unless you're charging for the source without providing working binaries at all, this is the same thing as setting the price of the source at zero. You're also unable to restrict those who purchase your software from redistributing it: > You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. ( https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html ) That is enough to ensure that open source code is provided to the world for free. This is why we have a distinction between "open source" and "source available".
  - pabs3 3y ago
    > That is enough to ensure that open source code is provided to the world for free. Not necessarily, the people you distribute the source/binaries to are under no obligation to give them to anyone else.
- mananaysiempre 3y ago
  In its early days, the FSF used to send out tapes with “GNU” and charged (considerable, if fair) fees for media and labour, because FTP access was difficult to come by outside academic circles. The webpage can’t be that old (the web itself being younger), but still dates from the times when it might have made sense to buy a consumer Linux distro in a store, as a bunch of CDs in a box (I still have mine somewhere). In the world of pervasive broadband and cheap hosting, I don’t think this business model could work—everybody you release your stuff to will just upload it to a public site. Red Hat will terminate the support contract in that case, which to me feels like a legal exploit I’m kind of conflicted about.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
People here seem to be forgetting that Open Source was a community driven ideal first. The License came later as "protection". Corporations were stealing code and there was no recourse. The variety of open source licenses were created to provide a framework for the community, to fight off stealing, to keep it open. Programmers want to program, they started sharing code, then corporations started using it, and erasing the authors names. Originally there was no 'License', programmers didn't come together for the fun of creating 'Licenses'. They were forced to create license to cover their code to keep it open for anybody to use. The original licenses were really just to keep it free and provide attribution, so the authors were known.
- zelphirkalt 3y ago
  This almost sounds like mixing up the terms or history of open source and free software. While both may have been driven by ideals, many of the licenses typically applied by people who call themselves "open source developers" do not contain copyleft. Therefore it is inherently easy for corporations to "steal" the code. "Steal" in quotes, because when the developers chose a license, they should have been aware of that their software can be used in any context without they themselves ever learning about it or seeing any contributions flowing back, so it is not really stealing anything, but the developers short-sighted choice of license. Sustainability in terms of keeping things open (libre) is more an area of licenses like GPL, AGPL, which contain copyleft. These are more commonly applied by developers calling themselves "free software developers". Most self-respecting free software developers will also call their software free (libre) software, instead of saying open source, even, if many open source licenses are also valid free software licenses.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    Guess, I'm thinking farther back, when developers first started sharing code openly with no licenses at all. Just groups working together to build something. Then some corporation, or guess anybody, could take it, erase the names, and start making money. Then there was a profusion of new licenses of all types trying to strike a balance, but all to protect the programmers from being erased. Some to make money and some just for joy.

n4r9 3y ago

I believe the "open" in open source means "publicly accessible". The concept of "free" is a bit stronger, and grants the user rights to modify and redistribute (unless they do so under a proprietary licence).

mananaysiempre 3y ago
The Open Source Initiative doesn’t and never did, and its founder (ESR) invented the phrase, having forked the Open Source Definition from the Debian Free Software Guidelines. (Before that, the common term was “sourceware”, and it was in fact somewhat vague as to what counts or not. It’s all but forgotten now, except for the website formerly maintained by Cygnus Support.) Even the 2000s “Linux is a cancer” Microsoft chose to invent the term “shared source” rather than attempt to dilute “open source” when they publicly released some source code for academic and noncommercial use. (They still faced accusations of terminology confusion, which might well have been true.) In that respect, the recent attempts at redefinition by Mongo, Elastic, et al. are a truly novel strategy.
- cxr 3y ago
  Weird when a comment tries to dispel a common but annoying presumption not supported by the record, but the attempt at debunking itself contains relies on similar presumptions that lead to claims that are counter to what we know is true. > its founder (ESR) invented the phrase No, Raymond was at the meeting where it was coined, and he enthusiastically helped popularize the term. Christine Peterson invented it.
  - mananaysiempre 3y ago
    > Raymond was at the meeting where [“open source”] was coined, and he enthusiastically helped popularize the term. Christine Peterson invented it. I wanted to grump about this not being written down, but even the OSI history page[1] mentions it. Huh. Thanks! [1] https://opensource.org/history/ https://opensource.org/history/
- n4r9 3y ago
  I stand corrected. Is it true nevertheless that open source software must make its source code publicly available? And that "free" is generally stronger than "open"?
  - seba_dos1 3y ago
    For all practical purposes, the terms "free software" and "open source" are equivalent - the difference is political (which still matters of course). The source code doesn't have to be publicly available with either, but every user must have access to it on request and they may redistribute it, so practically it usually becomes publicly available anyway.
  - pabs3 3y ago
    This is incorrect, the OSD doesn't require that the source code be public, just that it be available to the same people the compiled binaries of the software is available to. https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
  - redwood 3y ago
    There is a spectrum of perspectives on this topic. The "free software" maximalist side would argue that there are two ideas, free "as in beer" and free "as in freedom"... and they will typically say that anything that isn't free "as in freedom" does not conform to their view of what is in the spirit of open source. Then there's the other side of the perspective which argues that open source is being strip-mined by hyperscalers and that new licenses with very specific classes of restrictions aimed at protecting the developers are needed. That latter group typically would argue that the OSI is realistically controlled by the hyperscalers and hence it's all quite nuanced. It's a classic political debate with extremes on all sides and the rest of us having to survive somewhere in the middle

Strom 3y ago

The Free Software Foundation has the following to say. [1] > Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding. > Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. So this “no selling” talk is defintely a diverging perspective and does not apply to all open source licenses. In fact I think it can’t apply to any, because commercial use is a freedom that would be restricted if it were true. —- [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

thaumasiotes 3y ago
You are required, as that page notes, to include the source code at no additional charge whenever you sell or otherwise distribute the software. Unless you're charging for the source without providing working binaries at all, this is the same thing as setting the price of the source at zero. You're also unable to restrict those who purchase your software from redistributing it: > You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. ( https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html ) That is enough to ensure that open source code is provided to the world for free. This is why we have a distinction between "open source" and "source available".
- pabs3 3y ago
  > That is enough to ensure that open source code is provided to the world for free. Not necessarily, the people you distribute the source/binaries to are under no obligation to give them to anyone else.
mananaysiempre 3y ago
In its early days, the FSF used to send out tapes with “GNU” and charged (considerable, if fair) fees for media and labour, because FTP access was difficult to come by outside academic circles. The webpage can’t be that old (the web itself being younger), but still dates from the times when it might have made sense to buy a consumer Linux distro in a store, as a bunch of CDs in a box (I still have mine somewhere). In the world of pervasive broadband and cheap hosting, I don’t think this business model could work—everybody you release your stuff to will just upload it to a public site. Red Hat will terminate the support contract in that case, which to me feels like a legal exploit I’m kind of conflicted about.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

People here seem to be forgetting that Open Source was a community driven ideal first. The License came later as "protection". Corporations were stealing code and there was no recourse. The variety of open source licenses were created to provide a framework for the community, to fight off stealing, to keep it open. Programmers want to program, they started sharing code, then corporations started using it, and erasing the authors names. Originally there was no 'License', programmers didn't come together for the fun of creating 'Licenses'. They were forced to create license to cover their code to keep it open for anybody to use. The original licenses were really just to keep it free and provide attribution, so the authors were known.

zelphirkalt 3y ago
This almost sounds like mixing up the terms or history of open source and free software. While both may have been driven by ideals, many of the licenses typically applied by people who call themselves "open source developers" do not contain copyleft. Therefore it is inherently easy for corporations to "steal" the code. "Steal" in quotes, because when the developers chose a license, they should have been aware of that their software can be used in any context without they themselves ever learning about it or seeing any contributions flowing back, so it is not really stealing anything, but the developers short-sighted choice of license. Sustainability in terms of keeping things open (libre) is more an area of licenses like GPL, AGPL, which contain copyleft. These are more commonly applied by developers calling themselves "free software developers". Most self-respecting free software developers will also call their software free (libre) software, instead of saying open source, even, if many open source licenses are also valid free software licenses.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Guess, I'm thinking farther back, when developers first started sharing code openly with no licenses at all. Just groups working together to build something. Then some corporation, or guess anybody, could take it, erase the names, and start making money. Then there was a profusion of new licenses of all types trying to strike a balance, but all to protect the programmers from being erased. Some to make money and some just for joy.