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>"I know HN members will be super critical as to "Oh this isn't Open Source" but you have the licenses available for review and that's where it really matters.

>"I know HN members will be super critical as to "Oh this isn't Open Source" but you have the licenses available for review and that's where it really matters. The fact that the code is out there for review is a huge step and I hope more devs do it as it's a form of historical preservation in my eyes." Exactly, and every time something like this happens, the inevitable "this is not really open" comes up, often in a quite hostile way. That's an absolutely destructive approach (because if it was fully open source, and some large studio just stole the game and re-released it, the same crowd would say they knew the consequences of open sourcing) The "open code but not under an OSI licence" approach is I think the most beneficial for everyone (if we are talking about commercial software): users can inspect their copies, developers can learn from it and modify it, and the developers can live safely knowing that no one will steal their work or threaten to fork it.

kiba 3y ago
Nobody is demanding that you should open source it. Just don't call it open source if you are not going to make it open source.
- Pannoniae 3y ago
  Well the source is open for everyone to see..... it's just not capital Open Source as defined by the OSI. My personal opinion is that OSI shouldn't have a faux-trademark over that word, and people should be able to use that expression freely even if it doesn't conform to that definition, if the code is available.
  - reedciccio 3y ago
    That will lead to even more confusion in the minds of the hundreds of policy makers and courts worldwide, who already have plenty of opportunities to be confused. More: https://blog.opensource.org/court-affirms-its-false-advertising-to-claim-software-is-open-source-when-its-not/ https://blog.opensource.org/court-affirms-its-false-advertis... Use other terms, there are plenty of other options
    - Pannoniae 3y ago
      I agree with what you say, but the blog post you linked is hugely misleading. (remember, it's the OSI blog, of course they are going to twist it for their goals) The court did not affirm that "calling your non-OSI-approved licence open source is false advertising". As in the judgement: "It is undisputed that Defendants made the statements at issue to convince customers to adopt ONgDB over Neo4j EE. Because Defendants misrepresented ONgDB as a free version of Neo4j EE licensed under the APGL, there is no doubt that this price differential (free versus paid) was likely to influence customers purchasing decisions. See Hinojos v. Kohl’s Corp., 718 F.3d 1098, 1106–1107 (9th Cir. 2013), as amended on denial of reh’g and reh’g en banc (July 8, 2013) (recognizing under the UCL that price is material to purchasing decisions). Thus, the Court finds that Defendants’ statements suggesting that customers could obtain a “free and open source drop in replacement” for Neo4j EE were material." What the court did affirm is that the upstream licence was a modified AGPL with additional restrictions. The defendant has stripped those restrictions (claiming the AGPL "you may remove" clause allowed them to) and distributed the product as "free and open source". This was false advertising as they were not capable of stripping the Commons Clause and the copyright identification. Notably, this does not mean that it's false advertising to claim your software is "open source" when it is not OSI-approved, it means that if you offer a modified version of a piece of software, you can't advertise it as "free and open source" when the forked version is still bound by the Commons Clause prohibiting selling it in any way.
      - shkkmo 3y ago
        > means that if you offer a modified version of a piece of software, you can't advertise it as "free and open source" when the forked version is still bound by the Commons Clause prohibiting selling it in any way. This argument makes no sense. If the original modified AGPL license was "open source", then it wouldn't have been false advertising to make that claim since that was the license that actually applies. From the original (non-appealate) decision: >As discussed above, Defendants’ claim that ONgDB is free and open source Neo4j is false because it relies on an interpretation of the Neo4j Sweden Software License that this Court has rejected. The actual argument here would be that the usage of "open source" only constitutes false advertising because it was being used in the context of claiming to be different from the original license, thus implying a meaning in-line with the one used by OSI. It is quite possible that in other context (i.e. not part of a direct comparison to a less open license) that courts will decide that does not constitute false advertising.
  - kiba 3y ago
    My personal opinion is that by misusing the term open source, you're causing confusion. Open source is the term that I understood to be OSI definition since childhood. It would be like someone changing the term 'anime' to also include western cartoons. There would be no shortage of confusion. It doesn't matter how the Japanese use the term anime. For western audience, it has a different connotation.
    - Pannoniae 3y ago
      Language is not prescriptive but descriptive. No one can say (except for trademarks) that X is the only correct usage of a word and it shall remain that way for a millenia. Words regularly modify, change or adapt meanings - with your example, it's not unconceivable that 20 years later, anime would be used in the west as well to describe all sorts of cartoons due to japanese cultural influence. As Alice in Wonderland says: “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
      - kiba 3y ago
        Of course you are free to use whatever words you want to use to means what you want to mean, but we're talking about social norms and communication clarity. Open source has a specific meaning to specific communities and I see no reason to change.
      - ReactiveJelly 3y ago
        > Language is not prescriptive but descriptive No, language is a language game and it bothers most people if you deliberate muddy meaning. Don't "prescriptive" and "descriptive" mean the same thing anyway? What a dumb saying.
      - dwb 3y ago
        Mainstream linguistics is descriptive and not prescriptive; language is language. By far its most important aim is to be understood. It may be that “open source” shifts in meaning in the future, but this comments section is evidence that misusing it causes confusion.
  - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
    Is there a problem with the term "source-available"?
    - michaelmrose 3y ago
      It would have garnered fewer clicks and kudos rather than attempting to muddy the water.
  - seanclayton 3y ago
    It's not that the OSI has a faux trademark—it's that the OSI coined the term, its definition, and the OSS community grew around those. Before the coining of the term, source code being able to be looked at was never called "open source." It wasn't until the OSI initiative that this was the case, and we (observably in this article) see the effects of that effort today. To adopt the term and use the decades of effort to give it the usefulness and meaning it has today while admitting you are absolutely not adhering to that meaning (OP admitted as such in the license) is an abuse of the term at the least. It's certainly not a practice that is beneficial for anyone except the abuser. I want to say that I'm very glad that OP made the source code available to look at—it's very generous in the context of the game industry! I simply just ask can we not take advantage of the work of others by misusing the term "open source" and try saying something like "Even the Ocean is on GitHub!" or "Even the Ocean's git repo is public!"
  - imetatroll 3y ago
    So in other words it isn't open source. Ok.

kiba 3y ago

Nobody is demanding that you should open source it. Just don't call it open source if you are not going to make it open source.

Pannoniae 3y ago
Well the source is open for everyone to see..... it's just not capital Open Source as defined by the OSI. My personal opinion is that OSI shouldn't have a faux-trademark over that word, and people should be able to use that expression freely even if it doesn't conform to that definition, if the code is available.
- reedciccio 3y ago
  That will lead to even more confusion in the minds of the hundreds of policy makers and courts worldwide, who already have plenty of opportunities to be confused. More: https://blog.opensource.org/court-affirms-its-false-advertising-to-claim-software-is-open-source-when-its-not/ https://blog.opensource.org/court-affirms-its-false-advertis... Use other terms, there are plenty of other options
  - Pannoniae 3y ago
    I agree with what you say, but the blog post you linked is hugely misleading. (remember, it's the OSI blog, of course they are going to twist it for their goals) The court did not affirm that "calling your non-OSI-approved licence open source is false advertising". As in the judgement: "It is undisputed that Defendants made the statements at issue to convince customers to adopt ONgDB over Neo4j EE. Because Defendants misrepresented ONgDB as a free version of Neo4j EE licensed under the APGL, there is no doubt that this price differential (free versus paid) was likely to influence customers purchasing decisions. See Hinojos v. Kohl’s Corp., 718 F.3d 1098, 1106–1107 (9th Cir. 2013), as amended on denial of reh’g and reh’g en banc (July 8, 2013) (recognizing under the UCL that price is material to purchasing decisions). Thus, the Court finds that Defendants’ statements suggesting that customers could obtain a “free and open source drop in replacement” for Neo4j EE were material." What the court did affirm is that the upstream licence was a modified AGPL with additional restrictions. The defendant has stripped those restrictions (claiming the AGPL "you may remove" clause allowed them to) and distributed the product as "free and open source". This was false advertising as they were not capable of stripping the Commons Clause and the copyright identification. Notably, this does not mean that it's false advertising to claim your software is "open source" when it is not OSI-approved, it means that if you offer a modified version of a piece of software, you can't advertise it as "free and open source" when the forked version is still bound by the Commons Clause prohibiting selling it in any way.
    - shkkmo 3y ago
      > means that if you offer a modified version of a piece of software, you can't advertise it as "free and open source" when the forked version is still bound by the Commons Clause prohibiting selling it in any way. This argument makes no sense. If the original modified AGPL license was "open source", then it wouldn't have been false advertising to make that claim since that was the license that actually applies. From the original (non-appealate) decision: >As discussed above, Defendants’ claim that ONgDB is free and open source Neo4j is false because it relies on an interpretation of the Neo4j Sweden Software License that this Court has rejected. The actual argument here would be that the usage of "open source" only constitutes false advertising because it was being used in the context of claiming to be different from the original license, thus implying a meaning in-line with the one used by OSI. It is quite possible that in other context (i.e. not part of a direct comparison to a less open license) that courts will decide that does not constitute false advertising.
- kiba 3y ago
  My personal opinion is that by misusing the term open source, you're causing confusion. Open source is the term that I understood to be OSI definition since childhood. It would be like someone changing the term 'anime' to also include western cartoons. There would be no shortage of confusion. It doesn't matter how the Japanese use the term anime. For western audience, it has a different connotation.
  - Pannoniae 3y ago
    Language is not prescriptive but descriptive. No one can say (except for trademarks) that X is the only correct usage of a word and it shall remain that way for a millenia. Words regularly modify, change or adapt meanings - with your example, it's not unconceivable that 20 years later, anime would be used in the west as well to describe all sorts of cartoons due to japanese cultural influence. As Alice in Wonderland says: “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
    - kiba 3y ago
      Of course you are free to use whatever words you want to use to means what you want to mean, but we're talking about social norms and communication clarity. Open source has a specific meaning to specific communities and I see no reason to change.
    - ReactiveJelly 3y ago
      > Language is not prescriptive but descriptive No, language is a language game and it bothers most people if you deliberate muddy meaning. Don't "prescriptive" and "descriptive" mean the same thing anyway? What a dumb saying.
    - dwb 3y ago
      Mainstream linguistics is descriptive and not prescriptive; language is language. By far its most important aim is to be understood. It may be that “open source” shifts in meaning in the future, but this comments section is evidence that misusing it causes confusion.
- mitthrowaway2 3y ago
  Is there a problem with the term "source-available"?
  - michaelmrose 3y ago
    It would have garnered fewer clicks and kudos rather than attempting to muddy the water.
- seanclayton 3y ago
  It's not that the OSI has a faux trademark—it's that the OSI coined the term, its definition, and the OSS community grew around those. Before the coining of the term, source code being able to be looked at was never called "open source." It wasn't until the OSI initiative that this was the case, and we (observably in this article) see the effects of that effort today. To adopt the term and use the decades of effort to give it the usefulness and meaning it has today while admitting you are absolutely not adhering to that meaning (OP admitted as such in the license) is an abuse of the term at the least. It's certainly not a practice that is beneficial for anyone except the abuser. I want to say that I'm very glad that OP made the source code available to look at—it's very generous in the context of the game industry! I simply just ask can we not take advantage of the work of others by misusing the term "open source" and try saying something like "Even the Ocean is on GitHub!" or "Even the Ocean's git repo is public!"
- imetatroll 3y ago
  So in other words it isn't open source. Ok.