7 ms·

We can bicker on semantics all day long, if people at large continue using "open source" to mean "the source is openly visible" ("public source"?) we can't do m

by lloeki 2y ago

We can bicker on semantics all day long, if people at large continue using "open source" to mean "the source is openly visible" ("public source"?) we can't do much about it, and by irately pointing the discrepancy out we only come out as pedantic† to the point of appearing as "well, ackshually..." adversarial, which ends up being entirely counterproductive. Language evolves, semantics shift, context matters. What matters in practice is: a) whether we can disambiguate between "public source" and "one-true-scotsman FOSS". b) whether they're doing it in earnest (it's still better to have visible source than no source access at all) or whether the usage is disingenuous (trying to intentionally mislead by piggybacking on "aura" benefits of FOSS without it being actually FSF/OSI/SPDX/whathaveyou FOSS). At the end of the day, in practice one is still going to look at the actual license file/SPDX code anyway. † "Technically correct, the best kind of correct."

hnlmorg 2y ago
The problem is that companies like Microsoft created licenses that are semi-open to attract kudos. If the FOSS community changed “open” with “public” then Microsoft et al will then just move onto calling things like Reference Source License a “public source” license as well. The only way around this problem is to play these organisations at their own game and trade mark any such public source term. But that’s going to be expensive to enforce, and who’s going to want to pay for the lawyers?
- klez 2y ago
  > The only way around this problem is to play these organisations at their own game and trade mark any such public source term. But that’s going to be expensive to enforce, and who’s going to want to pay for the lawyers? Well, that's what the FSF and OSI are for.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    Their funds aren’t limitless. They don’t even have the resources to fight a GPL violations. Never mind any new hypothetical responsibilities.
- lloeki 2y ago
  > The problem is that companies like Microsoft created licenses that are semi-open to attract kudos That's the kind of move I squarely put under the "disingenuous" category. > If the FOSS community changed “open” with “public” That's not what I meant, what I meant is that the technically incorrect use of "open source" by MS&al would better be named "public source" / PSS. "source available" / SAS just doesn't have the same pattern/ring to it, which I presume is part of why it does not catch on. The humble suggestion here kind of rides on the easily understood idea that making, say, a GitHub repo "public" doesn't make the code magically FOSS. Then, by contrast with "public", "open source" gets a bit more of a specific meaning.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    But the entire reason companies misuse “open source” is so that people are confused into thinking those companies are supporting FOSS by giving back to the community when in fact it’s all just marketing trickery.
bruce511 2y ago
I hear what you are saying - language evolves, and we should evolve with it. I'm just not sure it's true in this case. Open Source has a -legal- meaning - in the sense that Open Source Licenses are legal documents which specifically cover what can and can't be done. Unfortunately the legal system does not just evolve terminology to suit whatever the current venicular is. >> a) whether we can disambiguate between "public source" The common phrase for this is "source available" >> by irately pointing the discrepancy out we only come out as pedantic When we allow words to change, when we allow misinterpretations of those words to proliferate, then we need to accept we are giving up the very freedoms those words set out to mean. If we just accept a new definition of Open Source today, then what's to stop the next generation of people/companies redefining it again in 10 years time? What happens when we start (colloquially) using the phrase to mean "the source is open inside the company, but not available outside it." Unfortunately we see this language evolution around us all the time. "Free Speech" doesn't mean what most people think it means. Neither does "Constitutional Right". And evidently there's a group of technologists, or would-be-technologists (never mind joe public) who do not understand what Open Source means. To you, defending the term becomes pedantry. But you live in a world where you have the access to code that you do, precisely because the older generation stood up for the specifics of the term - and fought for the very freedoms you now enjoy. You describe the corrections as "technically correct" without perhaps understanding the magnitude of effort that has gone into making it what it is. So forgive us please if we hold tightly to what was so hard won. Perhaps, and I mean this sincerely, rather than co-opting the past to suit your current needs, it's time for the current generation to fight for the ideals that -you- believe in. Just please, don't co-opt our hard-won terminology to do so.
- lloeki 2y ago
  > The common phrase for this is "source available" I know! Unfortunately that one doesn't seem to quite catch on beyond open source advocates (see my other nearby comment) > Open Source has a -legal- meaning - in the sense that Open Source Licenses are legal documents which specifically cover what can and can't be done. Does it? As in, is there any law-binding document that universally states what it means? Or has it been ruled anywhere what is or isn't open source? (respecting license terms may have been challenged, that as much is true, but that's about the license contents, not what is or isn't "open source") I may very well be unaware of such a thing existing, and I would be glad to learn there is, but the FSF or OSI or the collective mindhive of hackers (in the jargon file sense; and not saying that derogatorily) or whatever saying "this is what Open Source is", while a powerful community statement, is not particularly law-binding. AIUI even among the proponents they even kind of disagree on what "open source" is and is not. > "Free Speech" doesn't mean what most people think it means. Neither does "Constitutional Right". These, comparatively, are legally defined. > To you, defending the term becomes pedantry. I didn't mean to imply that I was personally thinking it was pedantry, only that it can (and often is) perceived as such. I am very much in favour of using proper terms, but I also recognise that it may not be as useful as one might think to fight the semantic fight in order to properly fight the value fight. > So forgive us please if we hold tightly to what was so hard won. Please, continue to hold tightly! Although sometimes one realises they can't ever hope to convince others they're "wrong", so maybe there are other ways to win... "You can't win, but there are alternatives to fighting." As a believer in and advocate of FOSS, I found it much more effective to battle on the value grounds instead of losing the audience right away, instead reaching out into their level of understanding. More often than not, they end up educating themselves down the road. Kind of a "use the opponent's weight against them" move.
jasonlotito 2y ago
> We can bicker on semantics all day long, if people at large continue using "open source" to mean "the source is openly visible" ("public source"?) we can't do much about it, and by irately pointing the discrepancy out we only come out as pedantic† to the point of appearing as "well, ackshually..." adversarial, which ends up being entirely counterproductive. But... > Language evolves No, it doesn't. It's statically optimized. > semantics shift Again, wrong. There are no shifting in semantics. > context matters. Wrong. There is no such thing as context mattering. It's all about the textual matterment. I love statically optimized language. It lets me assumptuate whatever I want, and you just have to affirm my matterment. Especially when we harnest with licenses. No need to be semantical there.

by lloeki 2y ago

hnlmorg 2y ago

The problem is that companies like Microsoft created licenses that are semi-open to attract kudos. If the FOSS community changed “open” with “public” then Microsoft et al will then just move onto calling things like Reference Source License a “public source” license as well. The only way around this problem is to play these organisations at their own game and trade mark any such public source term. But that’s going to be expensive to enforce, and who’s going to want to pay for the lawyers?

klez 2y ago
> The only way around this problem is to play these organisations at their own game and trade mark any such public source term. But that’s going to be expensive to enforce, and who’s going to want to pay for the lawyers? Well, that's what the FSF and OSI are for.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  Their funds aren’t limitless. They don’t even have the resources to fight a GPL violations. Never mind any new hypothetical responsibilities.
lloeki 2y ago
> The problem is that companies like Microsoft created licenses that are semi-open to attract kudos That's the kind of move I squarely put under the "disingenuous" category. > If the FOSS community changed “open” with “public” That's not what I meant, what I meant is that the technically incorrect use of "open source" by MS&al would better be named "public source" / PSS. "source available" / SAS just doesn't have the same pattern/ring to it, which I presume is part of why it does not catch on. The humble suggestion here kind of rides on the easily understood idea that making, say, a GitHub repo "public" doesn't make the code magically FOSS. Then, by contrast with "public", "open source" gets a bit more of a specific meaning.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  But the entire reason companies misuse “open source” is so that people are confused into thinking those companies are supporting FOSS by giving back to the community when in fact it’s all just marketing trickery.

bruce511 2y ago

I hear what you are saying - language evolves, and we should evolve with it. I'm just not sure it's true in this case. Open Source has a -legal- meaning - in the sense that Open Source Licenses are legal documents which specifically cover what can and can't be done. Unfortunately the legal system does not just evolve terminology to suit whatever the current venicular is. >> a) whether we can disambiguate between "public source" The common phrase for this is "source available" >> by irately pointing the discrepancy out we only come out as pedantic When we allow words to change, when we allow misinterpretations of those words to proliferate, then we need to accept we are giving up the very freedoms those words set out to mean. If we just accept a new definition of Open Source today, then what's to stop the next generation of people/companies redefining it again in 10 years time? What happens when we start (colloquially) using the phrase to mean "the source is open inside the company, but not available outside it." Unfortunately we see this language evolution around us all the time. "Free Speech" doesn't mean what most people think it means. Neither does "Constitutional Right". And evidently there's a group of technologists, or would-be-technologists (never mind joe public) who do not understand what Open Source means. To you, defending the term becomes pedantry. But you live in a world where you have the access to code that you do, precisely because the older generation stood up for the specifics of the term - and fought for the very freedoms you now enjoy. You describe the corrections as "technically correct" without perhaps understanding the magnitude of effort that has gone into making it what it is. So forgive us please if we hold tightly to what was so hard won. Perhaps, and I mean this sincerely, rather than co-opting the past to suit your current needs, it's time for the current generation to fight for the ideals that -you- believe in. Just please, don't co-opt our hard-won terminology to do so.

lloeki 2y ago
> The common phrase for this is "source available" I know! Unfortunately that one doesn't seem to quite catch on beyond open source advocates (see my other nearby comment) > Open Source has a -legal- meaning - in the sense that Open Source Licenses are legal documents which specifically cover what can and can't be done. Does it? As in, is there any law-binding document that universally states what it means? Or has it been ruled anywhere what is or isn't open source? (respecting license terms may have been challenged, that as much is true, but that's about the license contents, not what is or isn't "open source") I may very well be unaware of such a thing existing, and I would be glad to learn there is, but the FSF or OSI or the collective mindhive of hackers (in the jargon file sense; and not saying that derogatorily) or whatever saying "this is what Open Source is", while a powerful community statement, is not particularly law-binding. AIUI even among the proponents they even kind of disagree on what "open source" is and is not. > "Free Speech" doesn't mean what most people think it means. Neither does "Constitutional Right". These, comparatively, are legally defined. > To you, defending the term becomes pedantry. I didn't mean to imply that I was personally thinking it was pedantry, only that it can (and often is) perceived as such. I am very much in favour of using proper terms, but I also recognise that it may not be as useful as one might think to fight the semantic fight in order to properly fight the value fight. > So forgive us please if we hold tightly to what was so hard won. Please, continue to hold tightly! Although sometimes one realises they can't ever hope to convince others they're "wrong", so maybe there are other ways to win... "You can't win, but there are alternatives to fighting." As a believer in and advocate of FOSS, I found it much more effective to battle on the value grounds instead of losing the audience right away, instead reaching out into their level of understanding. More often than not, they end up educating themselves down the road. Kind of a "use the opponent's weight against them" move.

jasonlotito 2y ago

> We can bicker on semantics all day long, if people at large continue using "open source" to mean "the source is openly visible" ("public source"?) we can't do much about it, and by irately pointing the discrepancy out we only come out as pedantic† to the point of appearing as "well, ackshually..." adversarial, which ends up being entirely counterproductive. But... > Language evolves No, it doesn't. It's statically optimized. > semantics shift Again, wrong. There are no shifting in semantics. > context matters. Wrong. There is no such thing as context mattering. It's all about the textual matterment. I love statically optimized language. It lets me assumptuate whatever I want, and you just have to affirm my matterment. Especially when we harnest with licenses. No need to be semantical there.