3 ms·

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 "o

• seba_dos1 4y 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 4y 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 4y 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