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The article doesn't suggest that the main criticism of OSI was its "one-man show" operation. That's just what the work hours in the tax filings show and is ment

The article doesn't suggest that the main criticism of OSI was its "one-man show" operation. That's just what the work hours in the tax filings show and is mentioned as an answer to "Who was behind OSI?" > MongoDB is a source-available software license, but not an open source software license because it discriminates against how the software can be used That's exactly what the OSI's definition of open source suggests. So, if we accept OSI as the arbiter of open source definition you're absolutely right. And that's something that needs to be fixed (we do need to consider discriminating against hostile competitors and giving developers the right to protect their open source projects from being hijacked by bad actors). The point of the article is that the OSI's definition has not been updated for too long and the community deserves a definition relevant to the present time. Given the trajectory of technological advances, I would be really surprised if in 100 years from now people are still adhering to software guidelines published in 1997. I think sometime between now and 100 years from now we upgrade to better guidelines. Each individual and company will get there at their own pace.

commoner 3y ago
I see that you are the author of these "Collective Source"/"Research Solutions" pages, based on the social media username listed on your HN profile. The purpose of your entire article is to label the Open Source Initiative as "irrelevant" so that you can promote a weaker definition of the term open source that does not protect the freedom of users to use the software as they wish. While you are entitled to your own opinion, your statement "The Open Source Initiative was often regarded as a one-man show" is false in light of the easily available evidence that the Open Source Initiative is supported by numerous individuals and organizations. Your entire argument is tarnished by this false claim, since the Open Source Initiative has much more credibility than a "community" consisting of an empty Discourse forum, despite the Discourse forum being newer. Nobody is preventing MongoDB Inc. from restricting how MongoDB can be used with their Server Side Public License, which is a source-available software license. Nobody is preventing Facebook from restricting how its source-available project LLaMA 2 can be used. However, the FOSS community overwhelmingly rejects Meta's and MongoDB's attempts to water down the term open source to apply it to software licenses that restrict how its users can use the software. There is no shame in calling a piece of software source-available, since source-available software still offers more transparency than proprietary software with no published source code. But Meta's and MongoDB's efforts to brand their software as open source when they do not allow the freedoms that FOSS users expect from open source software are harmful marketing exercises that threaten the user freedoms championed by the open source software movement, all for the sake of commercial gain. It is important to distinguish between source-available software and open source software so users can properly determine the software that meets their needs based on the freedoms they afford.
- JasonGoldman 3y ago
  > The purpose of your entire article is to label the Open Source Initiative as "irrelevant" so that you can promote a weaker definition of the term open source that does not protect the freedom of users to use the software as they wish. The current definition allows all users to use the open source software as they wish. The problem is that, as we have learned through experience, some of those users are multi-billion dollar companies who are happy to exploit this unrestricted freedom at the expense of destroying the open source projects. LLaMA 2 expects you to apply for a license only if you have "greater than 700 million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month". The open source initiative corporation relies on financial help from companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. It's not surprising that they are vocal about LLaMA's terms. If you don't have 700 million monthly active users and are not sponsored by tech giants, you're probably fighting for the wrong side. The new definition may be "weaker" or "stronger" depending on your agenda. For one, it would give users the right to protect their privacy. But, this also means that it takes away the freedom to collect and monetize information without users' consent.
  - erik_seaberg 3y ago
    Competition is healthy, not hostile. If a project thinks it needs a monopoly on paid hosting and services, we should be very cautious about locking ourselves into it or contributing. The doc ought to cover the history that led into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition (especially https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline...). It didn’t appear out of nowhere and a lot of thought went into it.
    - JasonGoldman 3y ago
      Healthy competition is healthy, but there are competitors who are hostile. If you're referring to projects like MongoDB, the SSPL license doesn't give them (or anyone else) monopoly power. It's quite the opposite: "[The Server Side Public License (SSPL)] includes most of the text and provisions of the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPL v3), and primarily replaces section 13 [...] with a new section that requires that anyone who offers the functionality of SSPL-licensed software to third-parties as a service must release the entirety of their source code, including all software, APIs, and other software that would be required for a user to run an instance of the service themselves, under the SSPL. In contrast, the AGPL v3's section 13 covers only the program itself (the copyrightable work licensed under AGPL v3)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License

commoner 3y ago

I see that you are the author of these "Collective Source"/"Research Solutions" pages, based on the social media username listed on your HN profile. The purpose of your entire article is to label the Open Source Initiative as "irrelevant" so that you can promote a weaker definition of the term open source that does not protect the freedom of users to use the software as they wish. While you are entitled to your own opinion, your statement "The Open Source Initiative was often regarded as a one-man show" is false in light of the easily available evidence that the Open Source Initiative is supported by numerous individuals and organizations. Your entire argument is tarnished by this false claim, since the Open Source Initiative has much more credibility than a "community" consisting of an empty Discourse forum, despite the Discourse forum being newer. Nobody is preventing MongoDB Inc. from restricting how MongoDB can be used with their Server Side Public License, which is a source-available software license. Nobody is preventing Facebook from restricting how its source-available project LLaMA 2 can be used. However, the FOSS community overwhelmingly rejects Meta's and MongoDB's attempts to water down the term open source to apply it to software licenses that restrict how its users can use the software. There is no shame in calling a piece of software source-available, since source-available software still offers more transparency than proprietary software with no published source code. But Meta's and MongoDB's efforts to brand their software as open source when they do not allow the freedoms that FOSS users expect from open source software are harmful marketing exercises that threaten the user freedoms championed by the open source software movement, all for the sake of commercial gain. It is important to distinguish between source-available software and open source software so users can properly determine the software that meets their needs based on the freedoms they afford.

JasonGoldman 3y ago
> The purpose of your entire article is to label the Open Source Initiative as "irrelevant" so that you can promote a weaker definition of the term open source that does not protect the freedom of users to use the software as they wish. The current definition allows all users to use the open source software as they wish. The problem is that, as we have learned through experience, some of those users are multi-billion dollar companies who are happy to exploit this unrestricted freedom at the expense of destroying the open source projects. LLaMA 2 expects you to apply for a license only if you have "greater than 700 million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month". The open source initiative corporation relies on financial help from companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. It's not surprising that they are vocal about LLaMA's terms. If you don't have 700 million monthly active users and are not sponsored by tech giants, you're probably fighting for the wrong side. The new definition may be "weaker" or "stronger" depending on your agenda. For one, it would give users the right to protect their privacy. But, this also means that it takes away the freedom to collect and monetize information without users' consent.
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  Competition is healthy, not hostile. If a project thinks it needs a monopoly on paid hosting and services, we should be very cautious about locking ourselves into it or contributing. The doc ought to cover the history that led into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition (especially https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline...). It didn’t appear out of nowhere and a lot of thought went into it.
  - JasonGoldman 3y ago
    Healthy competition is healthy, but there are competitors who are hostile. If you're referring to projects like MongoDB, the SSPL license doesn't give them (or anyone else) monopoly power. It's quite the opposite: "[The Server Side Public License (SSPL)] includes most of the text and provisions of the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPL v3), and primarily replaces section 13 [...] with a new section that requires that anyone who offers the functionality of SSPL-licensed software to third-parties as a service must release the entirety of their source code, including all software, APIs, and other software that would be required for a user to run an instance of the service themselves, under the SSPL. In contrast, the AGPL v3's section 13 covers only the program itself (the copyrightable work licensed under AGPL v3)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License