4 ms·

What is "Open" still isn't fully agreed-upon in software. I still frequently see open source and source-available arguments.

sublinear 3y ago
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
jraph 3y ago
"open" alone is arguably not defined. Though assuming it means open source when qualifying some software is quite reasonable and someone using "open" should expect this to happen. What else could it possibly mean, actually? I don't quite understand why we are still arguing over the definition of "open source" so often. It seems all sorts of people don't want to recognize the open source definition from the open source initiative as authoritative, or want to twist it in all kinds of ways for all kinds of reasons. But this definition works well and is the best (only?) common thing we have. I now consider that the open source definition is fully agreed upon and people who disagree with it are wrong. And they are a minority, by far. There's no point in arguing on what we call open source today. Without context, if someone says open source, that's the only text we can go read. You can't just decide alone what the vast majority of people mean when they use the term. That's just shared culture. It's not an opinion. We can disagree on whether such or such license qualifies as open source (i.e. on the interpretation - and the OSI disagrees with the biggest Linux distributions for some licenses - especially Debian which uses the exact same text - the DFSG), but endless arguments about the meaning of open source are not about this. (now, I prefer speaking in terms of free software because of the philosophical background, and because the definition is also way simpler. I can explain it to a non technical person, while I can't remember all the rules of the OSD and even how many there are - so that's not even me blinded by any fanatical view on "open source")
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
I disagree; "Open Source" in software is well defined, and IME the only parties trying to muddy it are doing so to try and pass off their source available software as FOSS for marketing points.
nonameiguess 3y ago
We should remember that OpenAI was originally a nonprofit outfit meant to privately fund AI research, not a company meant to create user-facing software. As such, it's mission was to conduct science, and I won't claim that open science necessarily has a definition every scientist in the world agrees on, the idea is fairly formalized by international convention: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381148 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381148 It's quite wordy, but part of it is basically what the current top comment says: share both the data and the code so that anyone with access to appropriate research infrastructure can reproduce your results. It is definitely not compatible with private companies conducting scientific research as a collection of proprietary trade secrets meant to give themselves a competitive edge in commercial product development.

sublinear 3y ago

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

jraph 3y ago

"open" alone is arguably not defined. Though assuming it means open source when qualifying some software is quite reasonable and someone using "open" should expect this to happen. What else could it possibly mean, actually? I don't quite understand why we are still arguing over the definition of "open source" so often. It seems all sorts of people don't want to recognize the open source definition from the open source initiative as authoritative, or want to twist it in all kinds of ways for all kinds of reasons. But this definition works well and is the best (only?) common thing we have. I now consider that the open source definition is fully agreed upon and people who disagree with it are wrong. And they are a minority, by far. There's no point in arguing on what we call open source today. Without context, if someone says open source, that's the only text we can go read. You can't just decide alone what the vast majority of people mean when they use the term. That's just shared culture. It's not an opinion. We can disagree on whether such or such license qualifies as open source (i.e. on the interpretation - and the OSI disagrees with the biggest Linux distributions for some licenses - especially Debian which uses the exact same text - the DFSG), but endless arguments about the meaning of open source are not about this. (now, I prefer speaking in terms of free software because of the philosophical background, and because the definition is also way simpler. I can explain it to a non technical person, while I can't remember all the rules of the OSD and even how many there are - so that's not even me blinded by any fanatical view on "open source")

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

I disagree; "Open Source" in software is well defined, and IME the only parties trying to muddy it are doing so to try and pass off their source available software as FOSS for marketing points.

nonameiguess 3y ago

We should remember that OpenAI was originally a nonprofit outfit meant to privately fund AI research, not a company meant to create user-facing software. As such, it's mission was to conduct science, and I won't claim that open science necessarily has a definition every scientist in the world agrees on, the idea is fairly formalized by international convention: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381148 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381148 It's quite wordy, but part of it is basically what the current top comment says: share both the data and the code so that anyone with access to appropriate research infrastructure can reproduce your results. It is definitely not compatible with private companies conducting scientific research as a collection of proprietary trade secrets meant to give themselves a competitive edge in commercial product development.