4 ms·

According to the prevailing definitions, prohibiting commercial use is not Open Source.

by teddyh 3y ago

pickingdinner 3y ago
Of what? the GPL? Software can be MIT + commercial. That's still perfectly open source.
- pabs3 3y ago
  Of the Open Source Definition; no discrimination against fields of endeavor (such as selling software). https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
  - pickingdinner 3y ago
    You're not prohibiting anyone from using it. Nothing is stopping a business from using it, especially if the price is fair. So does OSI have complete authority over the definition of OS? Does their definition restrict dual licenses? Have they thought maybe creating more lucrative OS models/standards would help their cause?
    - teddyh 3y ago
      > So does OSI have complete authority over the definition of OS? Yes. > Does their definition restrict dual licenses? No.
      - pickingdinner 3y ago
        > Yes Except GNU and OSI are in conflict? > No Then you can have an OS license with a business license or even an FU license (arbitrarily horrible license).
        ghaff 3y ago
        >Except GNU and OSI are in conflict? Not at all. The various GPL licenses are OSI-approved. Though the GPL may restrict your ability to offer an open core version of the project. I think what you're missing is that if a project is licensed under an open source license, you can dual license it--including only offering some components under the proprietary license, i.e. open core--but the existence of that dual license doesn't take away any of the rights associated with the open source license on the open source portion of the codebase. But dual license doesn't mean that the use of an open source codebase can can be carved up into allowable uses under the open source license and allowable uses under a proprietary license.
        pickingdinner 3y ago
        Conflict may have been too strong a word. In argument maybe? From what I understood, GNU was/is kind of a big deal, and OSI didn't have a monopoly on OS, or otherwise they would have on GNU also. > if a project is licensed under an open source license, you can dual license it Confirming this is all I am after. I wasn't talking about carving anything up, though that sounds fun.
        ghaff 3y ago
        >Conflict may have been too strong a word. In argument maybe? The FSF (including GNU) and OSI have their own histories, missions, and philosophies (to some degree although there's no real conflict about what open source/free software are). Yes, there are politics around both organizations but that's mostly inside baseball from the perspective of the average software consumer. There are any number of other non-profits in the open source space that also do their own various things. And, yes, you can dual license. But understand that if one of the licenses is, say, MIT, a commercial entity can still use the software without paying no matter what the other license says. i.e. you can't use the second license to take away rights from the first license.
        pickingdinner 3y ago
        Then dual licensing is not possible? It's a simple IF statement. IF commercial then $cash, else $mit. A dual license doesn't mean they can choose if they already are what they are, ie for profit.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        To be a little more precise, the OSI does not own the "open source" term. But most of the industry accepts that, if a license isn't OSI-approved, it isn't an open source license. (And certainly isn't if it clearly violates the open source definition in some manner.)
        teddyh 3y ago
        > To be a little more precise, the OSI does not own the "open source" term. But most of the industry accepts that, if a license isn't OSI-approved, it isn't an open source license. I agree, but this is only putting it mildly. To make an analogy, does the United States get to decide what the borders of the United States are? No; there is (AFAIK) no international law which has delegated that right to the US Government. But most of the international community accepts that, if the US says that someplace is a part of the US, it is. In the same way, OSI and its Open Source Definition decides what is and is not Open Source.
    - rgoulter 3y ago
      > You're not prohibiting anyone from using it. Nothing is stopping a business from using it, especially if the price is fair. But "Free for private use, pay for commercial use" is a restriction. If you pay for it, you can use it. If you don't pay for it, you're restricted from using it. -- If there were no restrictions for not paying, then you'd just not pay.

According to the prevailing definitions, prohibiting commercial use is not Open Source.

by teddyh 3y ago

According to the prevailing definitions, prohibiting commercial use is not Open Source.

pickingdinner 3y ago

Of what? the GPL? Software can be MIT + commercial. That's still perfectly open source.

pabs3 3y ago
Of the Open Source Definition; no discrimination against fields of endeavor (such as selling software). https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
- pickingdinner 3y ago
  You're not prohibiting anyone from using it. Nothing is stopping a business from using it, especially if the price is fair. So does OSI have complete authority over the definition of OS? Does their definition restrict dual licenses? Have they thought maybe creating more lucrative OS models/standards would help their cause?
  - teddyh 3y ago
    > So does OSI have complete authority over the definition of OS? Yes. > Does their definition restrict dual licenses? No.
    - pickingdinner 3y ago
      > Yes Except GNU and OSI are in conflict? > No Then you can have an OS license with a business license or even an FU license (arbitrarily horrible license).
      - ghaff 3y ago
        >Except GNU and OSI are in conflict? Not at all. The various GPL licenses are OSI-approved. Though the GPL may restrict your ability to offer an open core version of the project. I think what you're missing is that if a project is licensed under an open source license, you can dual license it--including only offering some components under the proprietary license, i.e. open core--but the existence of that dual license doesn't take away any of the rights associated with the open source license on the open source portion of the codebase. But dual license doesn't mean that the use of an open source codebase can can be carved up into allowable uses under the open source license and allowable uses under a proprietary license.
        pickingdinner 3y ago
        Conflict may have been too strong a word. In argument maybe? From what I understood, GNU was/is kind of a big deal, and OSI didn't have a monopoly on OS, or otherwise they would have on GNU also. > if a project is licensed under an open source license, you can dual license it Confirming this is all I am after. I wasn't talking about carving anything up, though that sounds fun.
        ghaff 3y ago
        >Conflict may have been too strong a word. In argument maybe? The FSF (including GNU) and OSI have their own histories, missions, and philosophies (to some degree although there's no real conflict about what open source/free software are). Yes, there are politics around both organizations but that's mostly inside baseball from the perspective of the average software consumer. There are any number of other non-profits in the open source space that also do their own various things. And, yes, you can dual license. But understand that if one of the licenses is, say, MIT, a commercial entity can still use the software without paying no matter what the other license says. i.e. you can't use the second license to take away rights from the first license.
        pickingdinner 3y ago
        Then dual licensing is not possible? It's a simple IF statement. IF commercial then $cash, else $mit. A dual license doesn't mean they can choose if they already are what they are, ie for profit.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      To be a little more precise, the OSI does not own the "open source" term. But most of the industry accepts that, if a license isn't OSI-approved, it isn't an open source license. (And certainly isn't if it clearly violates the open source definition in some manner.)
      - teddyh 3y ago
        > To be a little more precise, the OSI does not own the "open source" term. But most of the industry accepts that, if a license isn't OSI-approved, it isn't an open source license. I agree, but this is only putting it mildly. To make an analogy, does the United States get to decide what the borders of the United States are? No; there is (AFAIK) no international law which has delegated that right to the US Government. But most of the international community accepts that, if the US says that someplace is a part of the US, it is. In the same way, OSI and its Open Source Definition decides what is and is not Open Source.
  - rgoulter 3y ago
    > You're not prohibiting anyone from using it. Nothing is stopping a business from using it, especially if the price is fair. But "Free for private use, pay for commercial use" is a restriction. If you pay for it, you can use it. If you don't pay for it, you're restricted from using it. -- If there were no restrictions for not paying, then you'd just not pay.