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> As far as I understand it, the stance of the 'Open Source' crowd is that if Amazon can't make it one of their AWS offerings then it isn't true open source, an

> As far as I understand it, the stance of the 'Open Source' crowd is that if Amazon can't make it one of their AWS offerings then it isn't true open source, and they'll get very upset at you if you claim it is. If you aren't interested in open source, that's your option, but open source has had a clear meaning for decades. You can use/write your software and people that believe in open source can use/write open source. What's the problem?

nothrabannosir 1y ago
Whether they contribute back their changes to their users.
- adastra22 1y ago
  Then you want free software (a subcategory of open source).
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    Free Software and Open Source have definitions that are both on their face and in practical application by the bodies responsible for each almost entirely identical. Neither is a subset of the other. If you are concerned about mandating users provide modifications by a similar license to the one they received material under, what you want is copyleft.
    - adastra22 1y ago
      “Free software” means copyleft. The free software foundation manages copyleft licenses. The term open source was explicitly coined to differentiate from the more restrictive free software / copyleft. All free software licenses are open source licenses. Not all open source licenses are free software licenses.
      - andrewshadura 1y ago
        This statement is incorrect.
        bigstrat2003 1y ago
        Indeed it is, but can people please not abuse the flag function for such cases? It's not against the rules to be mistaken, and "flag" is not supposed to be a super downvote.
        andrewshadura 1y ago
        I never use the flag function.
      - dragonwriter 1y ago
        > “Free software” means copyleft. No, it doesn't. The FSF uses “Free Software” to refer to a broad class that is essentially identical to the OSI use of “Open Source.” The term the FSF uses for copyleft is “copyleft”, which is a subset of Free Software.
        cxr 1y ago
        To underscore the point here: the FSF 1) hasn't/doesn't publish a free software definition that describes copyleft as a precondition to free software 2) hasn't/doesn't claim in any of their non-normative commentary that the definition has that precondition 3) readily and regularly refers to projects published under permissive licenses like the BSD, MIT/X11, and Apache licenses as "free software", despite not being copyleft licenses 4) themselves publish/maintain/govern software projects that are licensed under permissive licenses like the aforementioned non-copyleft licenses The claim that "'free software' means 'copyleft'" is a pernicious, bizarrely recurring but wildly misinformed claim that only shows up on message boards by people who can't ever have actually read primary sources that explain the positions of the organization they purport to describe, and have instead just, like, decided they understand the topic (through, I dunno, osmosis or something, I guess).
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  That's copyleft, something OSI was basically created to not imply.
Aurornis 1y ago
> If you aren't interested in open source, that's your option, but open source has had a clear meaning for decades. If I’ve learned anything from reading HN comments, it’s that “open source” means different things to different people, including those who believe themselves to have specific knowledge of the history of the topic. There are half a dozen different claims about the original meaning of “open source” in this comment section alone. They’re coming from people citing history and notable figures from open source past.
- wavemode 1y ago
  Yeah, and all but one of those claims is incorrect. "Open source" is not just a turn of phrase which became common over time. The phrase was coined by the founders of the Open Source Initiative, and it has always had a very specific meaning: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Initiative People who seem to think that "open source" has a variety of meanings, are probably confusing it for "free software" which does indeed have a variety of meanings (which was the whole reason the phrase "open source" was created - because "free software" was too vague, and they wanted to create a term with a single, specific definition!)
- account42 1y ago
  Not at all. There are some people who want open source to mean something else than it does because they want the positive publicity that comes with the term without the commitments to user freedom. Those people should not be given any weight.

nothrabannosir 1y ago

Whether they contribute back their changes to their users.

adastra22 1y ago
Then you want free software (a subcategory of open source).
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  Free Software and Open Source have definitions that are both on their face and in practical application by the bodies responsible for each almost entirely identical. Neither is a subset of the other. If you are concerned about mandating users provide modifications by a similar license to the one they received material under, what you want is copyleft.
  - adastra22 1y ago
    “Free software” means copyleft. The free software foundation manages copyleft licenses. The term open source was explicitly coined to differentiate from the more restrictive free software / copyleft. All free software licenses are open source licenses. Not all open source licenses are free software licenses.
    - andrewshadura 1y ago
      This statement is incorrect.
      - bigstrat2003 1y ago
        Indeed it is, but can people please not abuse the flag function for such cases? It's not against the rules to be mistaken, and "flag" is not supposed to be a super downvote.
        andrewshadura 1y ago
        I never use the flag function.
    - dragonwriter 1y ago
      > “Free software” means copyleft. No, it doesn't. The FSF uses “Free Software” to refer to a broad class that is essentially identical to the OSI use of “Open Source.” The term the FSF uses for copyleft is “copyleft”, which is a subset of Free Software.
      - cxr 1y ago
        To underscore the point here: the FSF 1) hasn't/doesn't publish a free software definition that describes copyleft as a precondition to free software 2) hasn't/doesn't claim in any of their non-normative commentary that the definition has that precondition 3) readily and regularly refers to projects published under permissive licenses like the BSD, MIT/X11, and Apache licenses as "free software", despite not being copyleft licenses 4) themselves publish/maintain/govern software projects that are licensed under permissive licenses like the aforementioned non-copyleft licenses The claim that "'free software' means 'copyleft'" is a pernicious, bizarrely recurring but wildly misinformed claim that only shows up on message boards by people who can't ever have actually read primary sources that explain the positions of the organization they purport to describe, and have instead just, like, decided they understand the topic (through, I dunno, osmosis or something, I guess).
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
MangoToupe 1y ago
That's copyleft, something OSI was basically created to not imply.

Aurornis 1y ago

> If you aren't interested in open source, that's your option, but open source has had a clear meaning for decades. If I’ve learned anything from reading HN comments, it’s that “open source” means different things to different people, including those who believe themselves to have specific knowledge of the history of the topic. There are half a dozen different claims about the original meaning of “open source” in this comment section alone. They’re coming from people citing history and notable figures from open source past.

wavemode 1y ago
Yeah, and all but one of those claims is incorrect. "Open source" is not just a turn of phrase which became common over time. The phrase was coined by the founders of the Open Source Initiative, and it has always had a very specific meaning: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Initiative People who seem to think that "open source" has a variety of meanings, are probably confusing it for "free software" which does indeed have a variety of meanings (which was the whole reason the phrase "open source" was created - because "free software" was too vague, and they wanted to create a term with a single, specific definition!)
account42 1y ago
Not at all. There are some people who want open source to mean something else than it does because they want the positive publicity that comes with the term without the commitments to user freedom. Those people should not be given any weight.