11 ms·

Open-Source Is Just That

78 points by OuterVale 2y ago

YetAnotherNick 2y ago
I think that the examples are not something most users fight with maintainers about. - Does open source mean that the maintainers are free to ignore single line security fixes PR and refuse to handover it to well trusted and willing contributors. - Does open source mean that maintainers could plant crypto miner or malware in the project or sell to someone who might do that? - Does open source mean that companies could change the license and keep the product name same or remove a core functionality and migrate it to paid version? I have seen multiple instances of all of these.
- bruce511 2y ago
  >>- Does open source mean that the maintainers are free to ignore single line security fixes PR Yes. >> Does open source mean that maintainers could plant crypto miner or malware in the project or sell to someone who might do that? Yes >> Does open source mean that companies could change the license and keep the product name same or remove a core functionality and migrate it to paid version? Yes None of the things you mentioned are restricted (or required) by the license. You may not agree with these points, or even consider them ethical, but OSS licenses allow for any of the above.
  - YetAnotherNick 2y ago
    I know license allows it in the same way it allows users to harass burned out maintainers. Both are bad and we should have some ethical guidelines. A popular open source has lot of community contributions like blog post, answers in stack overflow, issue reporting, PRs etc. And if the maintainer changes the behaviour abruptly with no way for community to fix it, even if they are ready to pay for the development cost like terraform seems like abusing the open source ethos for their advantage.
    - bruce511 2y ago
      OSS is a license. Ethics are not legal, so don't form part of a license. You are of course free to determine your own ethical standard and the use, or don't use, companies that apply that standard. >> abusing the open source You say "abusing" - they would say "using".
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    Tiny caveat: With a viral license and the absence of a CLA or such, a company might not be able to meaningfully change the license. (AIUI; IANAL)
    - bruce511 2y ago
      Yes, if the copyright is held by multiple contributors then they would all need to agree before changing the license.
bad_user 2y ago
Eh, no, Open-Source means Open-Source and I hate it when people try overloading words due to market-appeal or ignorance. https://opensource.org/definition-annotated https://opensource.org/definition-annotated I agree partly with the article about entitlement, but you need to define what "open" means, and "access to source code" doesn't cut it due to IP laws. It can't be "open" if it's a legal landmine. And yes, Open-Source does mean "FOSS", always. The definitions of Open-Source and Free Software being very much equivalent. Stop overloading terms for your own gain.
- gr_norm 2y ago
  Yes, agree with the rest of the article but "open source" most certainly does _not_ include "source-available". This is true regardless of which side of the permissive-vs-copyleft issue you fall on. Being obtuse about things like this dilutes the term, which I suspect is the desired outcome. To be clear, there's nothing particularly wrong with source-available programs; they simply do not rise to the level of benefits offered by open source programs.
  - djur 2y ago
    I'm personally not even super bent out of shape about some licensing schemes that are technically not OSD-compliant being called "open source" (i.e. ones that have targeted field-of-endeavor restrictions). There's at least a debate to be had. But what this article includes in its definition -- source code tossed over the wall that you're not allowed to do anything with -- is not anywhere close to what anybody has been calling "open source" for decades.
- bruce511 2y ago
  Free Software is a viral license. Open Source is not. So there is a difference, and I'd argue that Free <> Open Source, although they're similar. Other than that I 100% agree either you.
  - CaptainFever 2y ago
    Sorry, this is not true. Free software simply means that the software grants the user 4 fundamental freedoms: the freedom to run, study, redistribute, and modify. It does not require virality, though it is encouraged. From what I understand, Free Software and Open Source are largely similar, except that the former is political and moral, while the latter is mostly concerned about practical effects.
bruce511 2y ago
>> The code being available in and of itself does not give you a right to take it, modify it, or redistribute it. True, in the sense that some (not Open Source) things are distributed as source code. (I do so myself.) But the title of the article references Open Source. Capital O, capital S. If something ships under an Open Source (OSS not necessarily FOSS) then you fo have those rights. The bulk of the article is around support though, and I completely agree with the sentiments there.
mappu 2y ago
The MIT license spells this out extremely clearly IN CAPITAL LETTERS. It's actually really refreshing to read.
schoen 2y ago
The other points make sense to me, but I have to disagree with this one. > It does not mean it is free and open-source (FOSS). When the campaign to describe software as "open source" kicked off in 1998, it consciously choose the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) as the basis for the Open Source Definition (OSD), so that "open source" would refer to the same thing as "free software". Clearly the connotations of the two terms have diverged quite a lot, but their denotations weren't meant to.
- ekianjo 2y ago
  That's exactly what happens when you muddy the waters by using an ambiguous term like "open source". People not understanding the original motive.
- mvdtnz 2y ago
  1998 was 27 years ago. Definitions change.
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    Definitions do change, but this one hasn’t. 99% of people I see using the term “open source” in the present day are using it to mean software that you can freely modify and redistribute. For proprietary software with publicly readable source code, the term “source available” is used instead.
    - mvdtnz 2y ago
      Where are you getting that 99% from?
      - School-Cotton 2y ago
        Personal experience? I have never seen any notable case of a software project describing itself as “open source” that wasn’t also free software. Companies that want to publish their source code but not give you the right to use it however you want, e.g. Cockroach or (my former employer) Materialize, are described as “source-available” instead.
CaptainFever 2y ago
This is the whole reason why we should be using the term "free software" instead of "open source" [2]. Free software is about user freedoms; the creator is unable to stop the user from redistributing or modifying the software. By using the term "open source", these freedoms end up getting ignored, until it simply gets diluted down to source availability, as seen in this article [1]. Actually, this article goes one step further and even says that free software is not free software; that is, it can have a license that restricts fundamental user freedoms. This is obviously wrong. [1] From the article: > When software is open-source, it is open-source, not necessarily free and open-source (FOSS), and even if it is FOSS, it might still have a restrictive licence. The code being available in and of itself does not give you a right to take it, modify it, or redistribute it. [2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
- Aeolun 2y ago
  > This is the whole reason why we should be using the term "free software" instead of "open source" The definitions in my head go something like this: Open Source -> Open (e.g. free and unencumbered) & Source available Source Available -> Only source is available, restricted under some odious license presumably Free Software -> You can download this (generally in binary form) and use it for free.
  - globular-toast 2y ago
    Well you're wrong. The latter is referred to as freeware.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
      Although the closeness of "freeware" and "Free Software" is a problem IMHO.
- gcau 2y ago
  Free (as in freedom), open (like a book).
robinhouston 2y ago
This is a complaint as old as the internet, which probably bears repeating from time to time. One part I think is unnecessarily controversial: > It does not mean it is free and open-source (FOSS). This is another old argument that it's pointless to re-litigate, but one should at least note that this way of using the term ‘Open Source’ contradicts the OSI definition and risks causing avoidable misunderstandings. https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
- greyface- 2y ago
  Trademarks are the legal framework we use to protect phrases like this. In 1999, OSI applied for, and was denied, a trademark on the phrase "Open Source".[1] Perhaps there is a moral argument to be made to this effect, but there is not a legal one. [1]: https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.php https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p...
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    Ridiculous. The entire dictionary is nothing but consensus on terms with no trademarks (and from which government?) anywhere. OSI merely presents a definition as a service, for others to have something already thought-out to refer to rather than have to write a 10 page definition every time someone wants to refer to the concept. It is well established by now, and the only people trying to argue about it are simply uneducated or have some deliberate agenda where they somehow benefit from artificially clouding an issue that has already gone through a process of being hashed out and recorded long ago. There is no reason to give them any air.
  - robinhouston 2y ago
    I'm not trying to make either a moral or a legal argument, only to warn against using the term in a way that is liable to cause confusion or needless antagonism.
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    > Perhaps there is a moral argument to be made to this effect, but there is not a legal one Nobody was even talking about law until you chimed in. Believe it or not words can mean things in English independent of whether there is a court case establishing that meaning.
boyter 2y ago
Ignoring the open-source vs free software discussions that are bound to come about from this well said. Large companies exploiting developers and abuse towards the maintainers is probably my biggest bugbear when it comes to this. In fact I have a similar post https://boyter.org/posts/the-three-f-s-of-open-source/ https://boyter.org/posts/the-three-f-s-of-open-source/ which I redirect people towards if they become aggressive towards me when I am trying to help them. Thankfully I have only had to use it a handful of times.
cocoto 2y ago
As seen in the comments here, better to use a term like “source available”. It’s also more clear because the word “open” is way too abstract.
samdung 2y ago
Now i have an article i can refer people to who ask me for a deadline on OSS features they request. ;)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Aeolun 2y ago
I agree with everything except the concept of software whose source has been released not being free. If you put it, openly available, on the internet, that’s tantamount to giving it away for free, regardless of what bizarre license you release it under. Relying on restrictions in law is fundamentally a nasty proposition.
- zelphirkalt 2y ago
  Yet that law is, what normal people are held accountable to, whether it is nasty to rely on it or not. Of course, if you happen to be a tech giant and have almost limitless financial means, you can do whatever you want.
olalonde 2y ago
> When software is open-source, it is open-source, not necessarily free and open-source (FOSS), and even if it is FOSS, it might still have a restrictive licence. 2 The code being available in and of itself does not give you a right to take it, modify it, or redistribute it. Hmmm, if the license doesn't allow modification and redistribution, then it's not open source — it's "source-available." Open source, by definition, includes those rights. Just having access to the code isn't enough.
- card_zero 2y ago
  The words put, make, set, and run have literally hundreds of senses. Open source is very tightly defined with only three or four.
- CaptainFever 2y ago
  I agree. Similarly, if the license doesn't allow modification and redistribution, it does not grant the user fundamental freedoms, and is not free software, so it cannot possibly be free-and-open-source.
  - sceptic123 2y ago
    Can we not consider free as in beer here? I think if we can make a distinction between modification and redistribution then open source can be less proscriptive. If the source is open to view, and you are able to change that code in any way, just not redistribute your modifications, what would you call that?
    - pseudalopex 2y ago
      > Can we not consider free as in beer here? The rest of your comment didn't. How did you want to consider it? > I think if we can make a distinction between modification and redistribution then open source can be less proscriptive. I think new definitions should have new terms. > If the source is open to view, and you are able to change that code in any way, just not redistribute your modifications, what would you call that? Source available.
userbinator 2y ago
I've always found the fixation on source code rather odd. Many people know how to fix or modify anything else they own without the original design documents. Why should software be any different?
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  Is this a serious question? The answer is: because modifying software without the source code (i.e. reverse-engineering) is extremely difficult.
  - userbinator 2y ago
    Depends what you mean by "extremely difficult". I've had many experiences where the source code was available, yet finding what to change and figuring out how to rebuild the whole thing --- but without changing anything else --- was far more difficult than patching a few bytes in the binary. To quote the title of this article, "open-source is just that".
- CaptainFever 2y ago
  I think it's due to the impracticality of reverse-compiling and then modifying executable code. > A program that you can run consists of a series of numbers whose meaning is obscure. No one, not even a good programmer, can easily change the numbers to make the program do something different. Source: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.en.html
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    Some software is easier to hex edit that figure out how to compile ;)
  - userbinator 2y ago
    Stallman clearly had zero exposure to the cracking scene, nor the PC/microcomputer community. Back in the old days, we only needed a hex editor and disassembler, maybe sometimes a debugger, to "make the program do something different". PC magazines would publish binary patches too. IDA showed up sometime in the 90s but it was extremely expensive, and cracking it became a "rite of passage". Now, Ghidra is free and there are tons of other tools available.
jchw 2y ago
> When software is open-source, it is open-source, not necessarily free and open-source (FOSS), and even if it is FOSS, it might still have a restrictive licence. I strongly dislike this obviously controversial bit being snuck into an otherwise reasonable argument. The term FOSS is meant to unify "free software" and "open source software" and there is absolutely no reason to accept GNU's definition of "free software" and not OSI's arguably more successful definition of "open source" software. After all, "free" software, to this day, just sounds like freeware to the layperson, and meanwhile, there is other industry jargon you can use for when the source code is available but the copyright license doesn't meet these criteria.
- wolvesechoes 2y ago
  > and there is absolutely no reason to accept GNU's definition of "free software" and not OSI's arguably more successful definition of "open source" software The reason was to not dilute the politcal agenda of the original movement, and this dilution is exactly why "open-source" was created.
- NoTeslaThrow 2y ago
  > The term FOSS is meant to unify "free software" and "open source software" I have always assumed it to mean the intersection of the two contexts. As in, necessarily copyleft. A layperson doesn't know what copyleft is anyway; they hardly seem worth tailoring communicating for if you're not also going to explain the difference the terms encapsulate and why people might care. Just use "open source" at that point. As far as I'm concerned the OSI doesn't have any weight and there's little reason to think we share values sufficiently for me to start caring. Do I look like a corporation trying to slap some sense of community on a product?
  - jchw 2y ago
    > I have always assumed it to mean the intersection of the two contexts. As in, necessarily copyleft. The definitions are very, very similar. Neither imply copyleft; almost all open source licenses are free software licenses and vice versa. > As far as I'm concerned the OSI doesn't have any weight and there's little reason to think we share values sufficiently for me to start caring. Do I look like a corporation trying to slap some sense of community on a product? All I'm saying is that if we accept "free" as implying the GNU free software definition, then we should accept "open source" as implying the OSI definition. There is no logical reason for why GNU's jargon is somehow better than OSI's.
School-Cotton 2y ago
Open-source and FOSS mean the same thing. Any software that’s not Free Software is not open source. The only difference between the two terms is in the philosophy/ideology of the people who use them, not in their actual denotative meaning. If you describe source-available proprietary software as “open source” you are using the term differently from practically everyone else, including the people who coined it.
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  open source is very simple. It means you can freely read the source code. Thats it. Its in the name. If you want to add all these addendums you need a phrase that doesnt have intuitive meaning.
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    Regardless of how intuitive you think it is, that’s not what it means, and not what anybody has been using it to mean since the 90s at least.
lifeline82 2y ago
[dead]
nine_k 2y ago
No, "Open Source" is not "just that". This word combination has a specific meaning, not equal to a simple sum of these words. Similarly, "sparkling water", "hot dog", or "heavy metal" have meanings distinct form the simple sum of the meanings of constituent words. The notion of "Open Source" has an agreed-upon definition, understood widely within the community of software development practice: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd By the same token, "Free Software" has a specific, narrow meaning: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html What would you tell a person who would peddle you deep-frozen apple juice as "hard cider", because it's technically cider, and is undeniably hard? (While at it: I must praise the choice of the font on the page, super clean and legible. It's Lexend, freely available from Google Fonts.)
- CrimsonRain 2y ago
  Who made opensource.org the king?
  - palata 2y ago
    It's called a consensus.
    - ruicraveiro 2y ago
      Playing devil's advocate, I claim that the consensus is that open source just means public code, not free licenses. Prove me wrong.
      - palata 2y ago
        I claim that a hot dog is a dog, not some kind of sandwich. Prove me wrong.
        ruicraveiro 2y ago
        Is that just by consensus?
psychoslave 2y ago
I like to use FLOW for free libre open work. First, the name sound cool, who doesn't want to be in the flow, putting its stream of consciousness into some hikigai endeavor? It makes clear that there is something about liberty, rather than a focus on gratious in the monetary sense. It also bring on the table that there is some work at play. So human time and attention. The polysemie helps in the sense that it also stand for the result of the work, be it software, music or some graphic design.
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
The vast vast majority of people believe Open Source includes free. This is nonsense & actively harmful posting. There are some good paragraphs about what you don't get, but up at top saying it doesn't have to be free is not correct. Open Source Definition: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
KingMob 2y ago
Yet another article purporting to "defend" open source while simultaneously undermining its communal aspects by implying maintainers owe NOTHING to others. Where's the vigorous criticism of CLAs? The criticism of monetization that leaves out unpaid volunteers? The acknowledgment of all the free labor provided by users, bug reporters, documenters, evangelists, etc.? This attitude is as toxic as the users' attitudes it's railing against, just on the opposite side of the fence.
palata 2y ago
I understand the complaint about entitled users: because it is open source does not mean that there is a community, support, reviews or anything. Open source just says something about the kind of licence and that's it. This said, the author doesn't seem to have a good understanding of the definition of "open source" in the context of software. It is about the licence, not about the fact that one can read the source. It's a common mistake, but it's a mistake nonetheless. To people who would say "well, if I want to understand "open source" as "source that is open", sure: you could also consider that a "hot dog" is a kind of dog. But don't be surprised when people tell you that they eat dogs ;-).
sameerds 2y ago
I am confused. Has the author (and most of the comments below) not heard of the "Open Source Definition", or is it not considered relevant anymore? https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd

78 points by OuterVale 2y ago

I think that the examples are not something most users fight with maintainers about. - Does open source mean that the maintainers are free to ignore single line security fixes PR and refuse to handover it to well trusted and willing contributors. - Does open source mean that maintainers could plant crypto miner or malware in the project or sell to someone who might do that? - Does open source mean that companies could change the license and keep the product name same or remove a core functionality and migrate it to paid version? I have seen multiple instances of all of these.

bruce511 2y ago
>>- Does open source mean that the maintainers are free to ignore single line security fixes PR Yes. >> Does open source mean that maintainers could plant crypto miner or malware in the project or sell to someone who might do that? Yes >> Does open source mean that companies could change the license and keep the product name same or remove a core functionality and migrate it to paid version? Yes None of the things you mentioned are restricted (or required) by the license. You may not agree with these points, or even consider them ethical, but OSS licenses allow for any of the above.
- YetAnotherNick 2y ago
  I know license allows it in the same way it allows users to harass burned out maintainers. Both are bad and we should have some ethical guidelines. A popular open source has lot of community contributions like blog post, answers in stack overflow, issue reporting, PRs etc. And if the maintainer changes the behaviour abruptly with no way for community to fix it, even if they are ready to pay for the development cost like terraform seems like abusing the open source ethos for their advantage.
  - bruce511 2y ago
    OSS is a license. Ethics are not legal, so don't form part of a license. You are of course free to determine your own ethical standard and the use, or don't use, companies that apply that standard. >> abusing the open source You say "abusing" - they would say "using".
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  Tiny caveat: With a viral license and the absence of a CLA or such, a company might not be able to meaningfully change the license. (AIUI; IANAL)
  - bruce511 2y ago
    Yes, if the copyright is held by multiple contributors then they would all need to agree before changing the license.

bad_user 2y ago

Eh, no, Open-Source means Open-Source and I hate it when people try overloading words due to market-appeal or ignorance. https://opensource.org/definition-annotated https://opensource.org/definition-annotated I agree partly with the article about entitlement, but you need to define what "open" means, and "access to source code" doesn't cut it due to IP laws. It can't be "open" if it's a legal landmine. And yes, Open-Source does mean "FOSS", always. The definitions of Open-Source and Free Software being very much equivalent. Stop overloading terms for your own gain.

gr_norm 2y ago
Yes, agree with the rest of the article but "open source" most certainly does _not_ include "source-available". This is true regardless of which side of the permissive-vs-copyleft issue you fall on. Being obtuse about things like this dilutes the term, which I suspect is the desired outcome. To be clear, there's nothing particularly wrong with source-available programs; they simply do not rise to the level of benefits offered by open source programs.
- djur 2y ago
  I'm personally not even super bent out of shape about some licensing schemes that are technically not OSD-compliant being called "open source" (i.e. ones that have targeted field-of-endeavor restrictions). There's at least a debate to be had. But what this article includes in its definition -- source code tossed over the wall that you're not allowed to do anything with -- is not anywhere close to what anybody has been calling "open source" for decades.
bruce511 2y ago
Free Software is a viral license. Open Source is not. So there is a difference, and I'd argue that Free <> Open Source, although they're similar. Other than that I 100% agree either you.
- CaptainFever 2y ago
  Sorry, this is not true. Free software simply means that the software grants the user 4 fundamental freedoms: the freedom to run, study, redistribute, and modify. It does not require virality, though it is encouraged. From what I understand, Free Software and Open Source are largely similar, except that the former is political and moral, while the latter is mostly concerned about practical effects.

bruce511 2y ago

>> The code being available in and of itself does not give you a right to take it, modify it, or redistribute it. True, in the sense that some (not Open Source) things are distributed as source code. (I do so myself.) But the title of the article references Open Source. Capital O, capital S. If something ships under an Open Source (OSS not necessarily FOSS) then you fo have those rights. The bulk of the article is around support though, and I completely agree with the sentiments there.

mappu 2y ago

The MIT license spells this out extremely clearly IN CAPITAL LETTERS. It's actually really refreshing to read.

schoen 2y ago

The other points make sense to me, but I have to disagree with this one. > It does not mean it is free and open-source (FOSS). When the campaign to describe software as "open source" kicked off in 1998, it consciously choose the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) as the basis for the Open Source Definition (OSD), so that "open source" would refer to the same thing as "free software". Clearly the connotations of the two terms have diverged quite a lot, but their denotations weren't meant to.

ekianjo 2y ago
That's exactly what happens when you muddy the waters by using an ambiguous term like "open source". People not understanding the original motive.
mvdtnz 2y ago
1998 was 27 years ago. Definitions change.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  Definitions do change, but this one hasn’t. 99% of people I see using the term “open source” in the present day are using it to mean software that you can freely modify and redistribute. For proprietary software with publicly readable source code, the term “source available” is used instead.
  - mvdtnz 2y ago
    Where are you getting that 99% from?
    - School-Cotton 2y ago
      Personal experience? I have never seen any notable case of a software project describing itself as “open source” that wasn’t also free software. Companies that want to publish their source code but not give you the right to use it however you want, e.g. Cockroach or (my former employer) Materialize, are described as “source-available” instead.

CaptainFever 2y ago

This is the whole reason why we should be using the term "free software" instead of "open source" [2]. Free software is about user freedoms; the creator is unable to stop the user from redistributing or modifying the software. By using the term "open source", these freedoms end up getting ignored, until it simply gets diluted down to source availability, as seen in this article [1]. Actually, this article goes one step further and even says that free software is not free software; that is, it can have a license that restricts fundamental user freedoms. This is obviously wrong. [1] From the article: > When software is open-source, it is open-source, not necessarily free and open-source (FOSS), and even if it is FOSS, it might still have a restrictive licence. The code being available in and of itself does not give you a right to take it, modify it, or redistribute it. [2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

Aeolun 2y ago
> This is the whole reason why we should be using the term "free software" instead of "open source" The definitions in my head go something like this: Open Source -> Open (e.g. free and unencumbered) & Source available Source Available -> Only source is available, restricted under some odious license presumably Free Software -> You can download this (generally in binary form) and use it for free.
- globular-toast 2y ago
  Well you're wrong. The latter is referred to as freeware.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    Although the closeness of "freeware" and "Free Software" is a problem IMHO.
gcau 2y ago
Free (as in freedom), open (like a book).

robinhouston 2y ago

This is a complaint as old as the internet, which probably bears repeating from time to time. One part I think is unnecessarily controversial: > It does not mean it is free and open-source (FOSS). This is another old argument that it's pointless to re-litigate, but one should at least note that this way of using the term ‘Open Source’ contradicts the OSI definition and risks causing avoidable misunderstandings. https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd

greyface- 2y ago
Trademarks are the legal framework we use to protect phrases like this. In 1999, OSI applied for, and was denied, a trademark on the phrase "Open Source".[1] Perhaps there is a moral argument to be made to this effect, but there is not a legal one. [1]: https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.php https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p...
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  Ridiculous. The entire dictionary is nothing but consensus on terms with no trademarks (and from which government?) anywhere. OSI merely presents a definition as a service, for others to have something already thought-out to refer to rather than have to write a 10 page definition every time someone wants to refer to the concept. It is well established by now, and the only people trying to argue about it are simply uneducated or have some deliberate agenda where they somehow benefit from artificially clouding an issue that has already gone through a process of being hashed out and recorded long ago. There is no reason to give them any air.
- robinhouston 2y ago
  I'm not trying to make either a moral or a legal argument, only to warn against using the term in a way that is liable to cause confusion or needless antagonism.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  > Perhaps there is a moral argument to be made to this effect, but there is not a legal one Nobody was even talking about law until you chimed in. Believe it or not words can mean things in English independent of whether there is a court case establishing that meaning.

boyter 2y ago

Ignoring the open-source vs free software discussions that are bound to come about from this well said. Large companies exploiting developers and abuse towards the maintainers is probably my biggest bugbear when it comes to this. In fact I have a similar post https://boyter.org/posts/the-three-f-s-of-open-source/ https://boyter.org/posts/the-three-f-s-of-open-source/ which I redirect people towards if they become aggressive towards me when I am trying to help them. Thankfully I have only had to use it a handful of times.

cocoto 2y ago

As seen in the comments here, better to use a term like “source available”. It’s also more clear because the word “open” is way too abstract.

samdung 2y ago

Now i have an article i can refer people to who ask me for a deadline on OSS features they request. ;)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Aeolun 2y ago

I agree with everything except the concept of software whose source has been released not being free. If you put it, openly available, on the internet, that’s tantamount to giving it away for free, regardless of what bizarre license you release it under. Relying on restrictions in law is fundamentally a nasty proposition.

zelphirkalt 2y ago
Yet that law is, what normal people are held accountable to, whether it is nasty to rely on it or not. Of course, if you happen to be a tech giant and have almost limitless financial means, you can do whatever you want.

olalonde 2y ago

> When software is open-source, it is open-source, not necessarily free and open-source (FOSS), and even if it is FOSS, it might still have a restrictive licence. 2 The code being available in and of itself does not give you a right to take it, modify it, or redistribute it. Hmmm, if the license doesn't allow modification and redistribution, then it's not open source — it's "source-available." Open source, by definition, includes those rights. Just having access to the code isn't enough.

card_zero 2y ago
The words put, make, set, and run have literally hundreds of senses. Open source is very tightly defined with only three or four.
CaptainFever 2y ago
I agree. Similarly, if the license doesn't allow modification and redistribution, it does not grant the user fundamental freedoms, and is not free software, so it cannot possibly be free-and-open-source.
- sceptic123 2y ago
  Can we not consider free as in beer here? I think if we can make a distinction between modification and redistribution then open source can be less proscriptive. If the source is open to view, and you are able to change that code in any way, just not redistribute your modifications, what would you call that?
  - pseudalopex 2y ago
    > Can we not consider free as in beer here? The rest of your comment didn't. How did you want to consider it? > I think if we can make a distinction between modification and redistribution then open source can be less proscriptive. I think new definitions should have new terms. > If the source is open to view, and you are able to change that code in any way, just not redistribute your modifications, what would you call that? Source available.

userbinator 2y ago

I've always found the fixation on source code rather odd. Many people know how to fix or modify anything else they own without the original design documents. Why should software be any different?

School-Cotton 2y ago
Is this a serious question? The answer is: because modifying software without the source code (i.e. reverse-engineering) is extremely difficult.
- userbinator 2y ago
  Depends what you mean by "extremely difficult". I've had many experiences where the source code was available, yet finding what to change and figuring out how to rebuild the whole thing --- but without changing anything else --- was far more difficult than patching a few bytes in the binary. To quote the title of this article, "open-source is just that".
CaptainFever 2y ago
I think it's due to the impracticality of reverse-compiling and then modifying executable code. > A program that you can run consists of a series of numbers whose meaning is obscure. No one, not even a good programmer, can easily change the numbers to make the program do something different. Source: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.en.html
- saagarjha 2y ago
  Some software is easier to hex edit that figure out how to compile ;)
- userbinator 2y ago
  Stallman clearly had zero exposure to the cracking scene, nor the PC/microcomputer community. Back in the old days, we only needed a hex editor and disassembler, maybe sometimes a debugger, to "make the program do something different". PC magazines would publish binary patches too. IDA showed up sometime in the 90s but it was extremely expensive, and cracking it became a "rite of passage". Now, Ghidra is free and there are tons of other tools available.

jchw 2y ago

> When software is open-source, it is open-source, not necessarily free and open-source (FOSS), and even if it is FOSS, it might still have a restrictive licence. I strongly dislike this obviously controversial bit being snuck into an otherwise reasonable argument. The term FOSS is meant to unify "free software" and "open source software" and there is absolutely no reason to accept GNU's definition of "free software" and not OSI's arguably more successful definition of "open source" software. After all, "free" software, to this day, just sounds like freeware to the layperson, and meanwhile, there is other industry jargon you can use for when the source code is available but the copyright license doesn't meet these criteria.

wolvesechoes 2y ago
> and there is absolutely no reason to accept GNU's definition of "free software" and not OSI's arguably more successful definition of "open source" software The reason was to not dilute the politcal agenda of the original movement, and this dilution is exactly why "open-source" was created.
NoTeslaThrow 2y ago
> The term FOSS is meant to unify "free software" and "open source software" I have always assumed it to mean the intersection of the two contexts. As in, necessarily copyleft. A layperson doesn't know what copyleft is anyway; they hardly seem worth tailoring communicating for if you're not also going to explain the difference the terms encapsulate and why people might care. Just use "open source" at that point. As far as I'm concerned the OSI doesn't have any weight and there's little reason to think we share values sufficiently for me to start caring. Do I look like a corporation trying to slap some sense of community on a product?
- jchw 2y ago
  > I have always assumed it to mean the intersection of the two contexts. As in, necessarily copyleft. The definitions are very, very similar. Neither imply copyleft; almost all open source licenses are free software licenses and vice versa. > As far as I'm concerned the OSI doesn't have any weight and there's little reason to think we share values sufficiently for me to start caring. Do I look like a corporation trying to slap some sense of community on a product? All I'm saying is that if we accept "free" as implying the GNU free software definition, then we should accept "open source" as implying the OSI definition. There is no logical reason for why GNU's jargon is somehow better than OSI's.

School-Cotton 2y ago

Open-source and FOSS mean the same thing. Any software that’s not Free Software is not open source. The only difference between the two terms is in the philosophy/ideology of the people who use them, not in their actual denotative meaning. If you describe source-available proprietary software as “open source” you are using the term differently from practically everyone else, including the people who coined it.

HDThoreaun 2y ago
open source is very simple. It means you can freely read the source code. Thats it. Its in the name. If you want to add all these addendums you need a phrase that doesnt have intuitive meaning.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  Regardless of how intuitive you think it is, that’s not what it means, and not what anybody has been using it to mean since the 90s at least.

lifeline82 2y ago

[dead]

nine_k 2y ago

No, "Open Source" is not "just that". This word combination has a specific meaning, not equal to a simple sum of these words. Similarly, "sparkling water", "hot dog", or "heavy metal" have meanings distinct form the simple sum of the meanings of constituent words. The notion of "Open Source" has an agreed-upon definition, understood widely within the community of software development practice: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd By the same token, "Free Software" has a specific, narrow meaning: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html What would you tell a person who would peddle you deep-frozen apple juice as "hard cider", because it's technically cider, and is undeniably hard? (While at it: I must praise the choice of the font on the page, super clean and legible. It's Lexend, freely available from Google Fonts.)

CrimsonRain 2y ago
Who made opensource.org the king?
- palata 2y ago
  It's called a consensus.
  - ruicraveiro 2y ago
    Playing devil's advocate, I claim that the consensus is that open source just means public code, not free licenses. Prove me wrong.
    - palata 2y ago
      I claim that a hot dog is a dog, not some kind of sandwich. Prove me wrong.
      - ruicraveiro 2y ago
        Is that just by consensus?

psychoslave 2y ago

I like to use FLOW for free libre open work. First, the name sound cool, who doesn't want to be in the flow, putting its stream of consciousness into some hikigai endeavor? It makes clear that there is something about liberty, rather than a focus on gratious in the monetary sense. It also bring on the table that there is some work at play. So human time and attention. The polysemie helps in the sense that it also stand for the result of the work, be it software, music or some graphic design.

jauntywundrkind 2y ago

The vast vast majority of people believe Open Source includes free. This is nonsense & actively harmful posting. There are some good paragraphs about what you don't get, but up at top saying it doesn't have to be free is not correct. Open Source Definition: https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd

KingMob 2y ago

Yet another article purporting to "defend" open source while simultaneously undermining its communal aspects by implying maintainers owe NOTHING to others. Where's the vigorous criticism of CLAs? The criticism of monetization that leaves out unpaid volunteers? The acknowledgment of all the free labor provided by users, bug reporters, documenters, evangelists, etc.? This attitude is as toxic as the users' attitudes it's railing against, just on the opposite side of the fence.

palata 2y ago

I understand the complaint about entitled users: because it is open source does not mean that there is a community, support, reviews or anything. Open source just says something about the kind of licence and that's it. This said, the author doesn't seem to have a good understanding of the definition of "open source" in the context of software. It is about the licence, not about the fact that one can read the source. It's a common mistake, but it's a mistake nonetheless. To people who would say "well, if I want to understand "open source" as "source that is open", sure: you could also consider that a "hot dog" is a kind of dog. But don't be surprised when people tell you that they eat dogs ;-).

sameerds 2y ago

I am confused. Has the author (and most of the comments below) not heard of the "Open Source Definition", or is it not considered relevant anymore? https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd