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> SQLite is not open source in the legal sense, as “open source” has a specific definition and requires licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI).
by chrismorgan 2y ago
> SQLite is not open source in the legal sense, as “open source” has a specific definition and requires licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI).
This is wrong, and harmfully wrong. OSI are not the arbiters of open source. Their Open Source Definition, though generally useful and accepted, is not without legitimate criticism and controversy. As for their approval, that’s a dreadful thing to rely on for any purpose; <https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/05/05/Rely-on-OSI.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/05/05/Rely-on-OSI.html> is a good description of most of what’s wrong with it (it doesn’t really get into the broken politics enough; but some of his other articles contain more), and I like its summary: “The list of OSI-approved licenses reflects OSI’s practical and political history, not any useful, consistently functional category of license terms.”
As for whether SQLite is open source, well, the only reason a public domain dedication doesn’t meet the OSD is that it’s not a license. It’s more open. In a way that is legally mildly uncertain in some jurisdictions, sure, but to call it “not open source in the legal sense” is just wrong.
- mschuster91 2y agoThe thing is, in many corporate and government settings, OSI is trusted by default as "this is open source", and anything not explicitly covered by OSI will cause you a world of pain with your legal department to get an exception.
- WaxProlix 2y agoAnd yet sqlite is the most distributed database code on the planet by an order of magnitude.
- datavirtue 2y agoNo one does any due diligence on software. It's a free for all.
- sroussey 2y agoIt’s distributed in MacOS, Chrome, Firefox, etc. I think these companies do due diligence.
- datavirtue 2y agoEdge case. In every company on the surface of this continent people import libraries and run software with no idea what is under the hood and whether they are compliant with all the applicable license agreements. Some clumsy attempts are made for major systems in some companies, but again, edge cases.
- red_admiral 2y agoWhat part of Public Domain do these legal departments not understand?
- hermitdev 2y agoIt's not that they don't understand; it's that it causes more work for the lawyers, because someone has to review the license if it's not one of the standard boilerplate acceptable licenses. I once had to go to lawyers to get a license approved on a lib that went something along the lines of "this work is in the public domain; do whatever the fuck you want with it, just don't come crawling to me for help". I'm paraphrasing from ~20-year-old memories here, but I do distinctly remember the profanity. It elicited a chuckle from the lawyer and something along the lines of "I wish all of these were this simple".
- wat10000 2y agoJSLint had a standard open source license with an addition that said “The Software should be used for Good, not Evil.” IBM wanted to use it but their lawyers balked at the added restriction. They wrote to the author to see if it could be removed. The author wrote back with, “I give permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil.”
- 8organicbits 2y agoIf you're doing this sort of license analysis, try a license detector I built. It tries to guess which license was used and diff any changes. Lots of licenses are small changes from others, so it usually makes multiple guesses. https://alexsci.com/which-license/ https://alexsci.com/which-license/
- emmelaich 2y agoSounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL "DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE"
- monocasa 2y agoThe US isn't the only jurisdiction, and public domain isn't a concept in all jurisdictions.
- bosswipe 2y ago[dead]
- avinassh 2y agoI will try to rephrase it and include links to Wikipedia and OSI > As for whether SQLite is open source, well, the only reason a public domain dedication doesn’t meet the OSD is that it’s not a license. It’s more open. That's true and I do acknowledge this in the post: > Instead, SQLite is in the public domain, which means it has even fewer restrictions than any open source license. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source [2] https://opensource.org/blog/public-domain-is-not-open-source https://opensource.org/blog/public-domain-is-not-open-source
- cryptonector 2y agoI'm willing to let OSI own "Open Source", cause why not (do they have a trademark on "Open Source"?), but not "open source". All-lowercase "open source" includes public domain, I don't care what OSI says about it, while "Open Source" is whatever OSI says it is, and if that does not include public domain then so be it.
- rad_gruchalski 2y agoQuite an interesting rabbit hole to explore. Apparently OSI holds a US trademark for “Open Source Initiative Approved License”, but no trademark for “open source” by itself.
- ska 2y agoHardly surprising because the idiomatic usage of "open source" predates OSI.
- cryptonector 2y agoApparently not by a lot, but it does indeed.
- mbreese 2y agoThe term definitely preceded the organization. The term was in use for years before OSI was formed. And OSI was clearly formed in order to provide some clarity to what was meant by “open source”. In other words, if there was no ambiguity in the phrase “open source”, OSI would never have been created.
- cryptonector 2y agoAnd the best way to handle this ambiguity is to use "Open Source" when referring to OSI's definition, and "open source" when referring to the colloquial and ill-defined form.
- 2y ago
- belter 2y agoYou commented before reading...Unless the author updated the blog in the meanwhile. Because point 6 says: "Instead, SQLite is in the public domain, which means it has even fewer restrictions than any open source license."
- causal 2y agoThat's the point. It should still be considered open source.
- Filligree 2y agoWhich is not a thing in my jurisdiction, and so as far as I can tell it’s treated as being proprietary and unlicensed.
- rustc 2y agoIs using SQLite without buying a license [1] really illegal in your jurisdiction? [1]: https://www.sqlite.org/purchase/license https://www.sqlite.org/purchase/license
- Filligree 2y agoAs far as I can tell, yes. It's a grey zone, because it'd fall under civil law, not criminal; so SQLite's copyright owners would need to bring suit against me for it to matter, which I don't believe they will. However, on the face of it I have no right to use the software without buying a license.
- nicbn 2y agoWould it be possible for someone within a compatible jurisdiction to mirror SQLite3 and provide it under some license such that it could be used by anyone?
- franga2000 2y agoI don't see how it could possibly could be illegal in any jurisdiction. The only part of the US public domain that won't fly in many countries is the waiver of moral rights (mainly the right to attribution). Since my country does not allow this waiver, the authors might be able to sue me in my jurisdiction if I started claiming to be the author of the code, which would have been ok in the US. But the voluntary non-exclusive transfer of usage, modification and distribution rights is surely allowed in every jurisdiction, so there is no reason that that part of the dedication would not be valid. And if there exists a jurisdiction where the transfer of material rights isn't allowed at all, selling a license also wouldn't fix anything. Unless there's a jurisdiction out there somewhere that allows the transfer only in exchange for money or in a one-on-one contract, but then open source licenses also wouldn't apply there and I feel like I would've heard about it as a fun fact somewhere on the Internet by now...
- ezekg 2y agoHere's another interesting read on "open source" and the OSI: https://dieter.plaetinck.be/posts/open-source-undefined-part-1-the-alternative-origin-story/ https://dieter.plaetinck.be/posts/open-source-undefined-part...
- red_admiral 2y agoIndeed, it seems to me that Public Domain is what Open Source should have been in the first place. The free as in freedom, but not as in free beer quadrant doesn't work too well, especially for individual developers.
- sneak 2y agoThere is an argument that without the copyleft provisions of the GPL (sometimes described as a virus), free software would not be as popular and important as it is today.
- psychoslave 2y agoHumanity also was described as a virus, see for example The Matrix. Also capitalism, communism, socialism, any political system, religions, philosophies, cultures, and anything you might relate or hate at mental level. Even the idea that whatever we dislike that gains more than zero popularity should be compared to a virus, this meme spreads like a virus.
- dec0dedab0de 2y agoYou can release a binary as public domain. Also, I believe that public domain as a concept does not exist in some countries. if i remember correctly the concern is that without a license the original author could change their mind and sue. But any public domain software also matches the fsf and osi definition of free software and open source respectively. Atleast in jurisdictions where public domain exists. You may be confusing things with copy-left, which is designed to protect users from developers. The gpl is a copy-left license.
- remram 2y agoOP is wrong, SQLite does match the requirements outlined in the OSI's definition: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd It's not "open source licensed" simply because it is not licensed. There is no license document for OSI to approve. Relying on OSI approval does not necessarily make sense, they don't get to all licenses as your link points out. However arguing over their definition seems very foolish. People only do it when they want to pass their all-rights-reserved code as "open source" (e.g. "I can call it what I want"). Having adjectives that mean the same to everyone is very valuable, actually.
- evanelias 2y ago> Having adjectives that mean the same to everyone is very valuable, actually. Yes, and that's precisely why OSI should have invented a brand new term which they could trademark. But instead they co-opted "open source" which already had a clear, generic meaning of "the source code is available", previously without any connotations around specific license terms. And then due to that prior usage of the term, OSI can't trademark it. OSI created this terminology mess, and personally I don't think it is "foolish" to argue with their historical revisionism campaign around it. Edit to add: for numerous proven examples of the term being used for many years prior to the OSI's existence, read the link ezekg already posted below, https://dieter.plaetinck.be/posts/open-source-undefined-part-1-the-alternative-origin-story/ https://dieter.plaetinck.be/posts/open-source-undefined-part...
- rat87 2y agoThat is not clear or generic. Source code available isn't that useful and isn't Open Source.
- evanelias 2y agoI am saying that describing a code base as "open source" was intuitive and generically understood to mean "source available" prior to 1998, which is when the OSI co-opted the term and conflated it with a much more specific definition involving license restrictions. As for the pre-1998 meaning not being "clear", that's a matter of opinion. I would counter that OSI choosing to redefine an already existing term, and then falsely claim they invented that term, makes things far less clear. Please read the link I included above. That post author's findings completely align with my own recollection from discussions on BBS's and newsgroups in the 90s.
- gcau 2y agoYou are 100% correct. Open source has a common definition the vast majority of the world uses, a company can proclaim their own definition, but it doesn't magically change the language. Nobody is thinking about, or even aware of, the OSI, when using the term. The correct term people should be using is "OSI approved", or something similar, although that's no more meaningful or useful as a "bob approved" license, where bob is some random nobody.