3 ms·

That's fine, but I don't think you should call it open source or call it MIT or even 'modified MIT.' Call it Mistral license or something along those lines

jrm4 11mo ago
You're presently illustrating exactly why Stallman et al were such sticklers about "Free Software." "Open Source" is nebulous. It reasonably works here, for better or worse.
- whimsicalism 11mo ago
  Free software to me means GPL and associates, so if that is what Stallman was trying to be a stickler for - it worked. Open source has a well understood meaning, including licenses like MIT and Apache - but not including MIT but only if you make less than $500million dollars, MIT unless you were born on a wednesday, etc.
  - whimblepop 11mo ago
    MIT and Apache are free software licenses in Stallman's sense, and the FSF has always been clear about it.
- stonemetal12 11mo ago
  >"Open Source" is nebulous No it isn't it is well defined. The only people who find it "nebulous" are people who want the benefits without upholding the obligations. https://opensource.org/definition-annotated https://opensource.org/definition-annotated
fastball 11mo ago
imo this is a hill people need to stop dying on. Open source means "I can see the source" to most of the world. Wishing it meant "very permissively licensed" to everyone is a lost cause. And honestly it wasn't a good hill to begin with: if what you are talking about is the license, call it "open license". The source code is out in the open, so it is "open source". This is why the purists have lost ground to practical usage.
- whimsicalism 11mo ago
  > Open source means "I can see the source" to most of the world well we don't really want to open that can of worms though, do we? I don't agree with ceding technical terms to the rest of the world. I'm increasingly told we need to stop calling cancer detection AI "AI" or "ML" because it is not the 'bad AI' and confuses people. I guess I'm okay with being intransigent.
  - fastball 11mo ago
    If you are happy that time is being spent quibbling over definitions instead of actually focusing on the ideal, I'm not sure you care about the ideals as much as you say you do. Who gives a shit what we call "cancer AI", what matters is the result.
- embedding-shape 11mo ago
  > imo this is a hill people need to stop dying on. As someone who was born and raised on FOSS, and still mostly employed to work on FOSS, I disagree. Open source is what it is today because it's built by people with a spine who stand tall for their ideals even if it means less money, less industry recognition, lots of unglorious work and lots of other negatives. It's not purist to believe that what built open source so far should remain open source, and not wanting to dilute that ecosystem with things that aren't open source, yet call themselves open source.
  - fastball 11mo ago
    You should stand up for your ideals, but dying on the hill of what you call your ideals is actually getting in the way of that. Because instead of making the point "this license isn't as permissive as it could/should be" (easy to understand), instead the point being made is "this isn't real open source", which comes across to most people as just some weird gate-keeping / No True Scotsman kinda thing.
    - whimsicalism 11mo ago
      no, “No True Scotsman” is just about people not categories like open source
joseda-hg 11mo ago
That's probably better, but Modified MIT is pretty descriptive, I read it as "mostly MIT, but with caveats for extreme cases" which is about right, if you already know what the MIT license entails Whatever name they come up with for a new license will be less useful, because I'll have to figure out that this is what that is
- tensor 11mo ago
  To me this is highly misleading. The core idea behind MIT is that you can use it for anything, including commercial. A "you can use it for commercial only if you're revenue is small" is not remotely MIT-like. It's commercial with a freemium tier.

jrm4 11mo ago

You're presently illustrating exactly why Stallman et al were such sticklers about "Free Software." "Open Source" is nebulous. It reasonably works here, for better or worse.

whimsicalism 11mo ago
Free software to me means GPL and associates, so if that is what Stallman was trying to be a stickler for - it worked. Open source has a well understood meaning, including licenses like MIT and Apache - but not including MIT but only if you make less than $500million dollars, MIT unless you were born on a wednesday, etc.
- whimblepop 11mo ago
  MIT and Apache are free software licenses in Stallman's sense, and the FSF has always been clear about it.
stonemetal12 11mo ago
>"Open Source" is nebulous No it isn't it is well defined. The only people who find it "nebulous" are people who want the benefits without upholding the obligations. https://opensource.org/definition-annotated https://opensource.org/definition-annotated

fastball 11mo ago

imo this is a hill people need to stop dying on. Open source means "I can see the source" to most of the world. Wishing it meant "very permissively licensed" to everyone is a lost cause. And honestly it wasn't a good hill to begin with: if what you are talking about is the license, call it "open license". The source code is out in the open, so it is "open source". This is why the purists have lost ground to practical usage.

whimsicalism 11mo ago
> Open source means "I can see the source" to most of the world well we don't really want to open that can of worms though, do we? I don't agree with ceding technical terms to the rest of the world. I'm increasingly told we need to stop calling cancer detection AI "AI" or "ML" because it is not the 'bad AI' and confuses people. I guess I'm okay with being intransigent.
- fastball 11mo ago
  If you are happy that time is being spent quibbling over definitions instead of actually focusing on the ideal, I'm not sure you care about the ideals as much as you say you do. Who gives a shit what we call "cancer AI", what matters is the result.
embedding-shape 11mo ago
> imo this is a hill people need to stop dying on. As someone who was born and raised on FOSS, and still mostly employed to work on FOSS, I disagree. Open source is what it is today because it's built by people with a spine who stand tall for their ideals even if it means less money, less industry recognition, lots of unglorious work and lots of other negatives. It's not purist to believe that what built open source so far should remain open source, and not wanting to dilute that ecosystem with things that aren't open source, yet call themselves open source.
- fastball 11mo ago
  You should stand up for your ideals, but dying on the hill of what you call your ideals is actually getting in the way of that. Because instead of making the point "this license isn't as permissive as it could/should be" (easy to understand), instead the point being made is "this isn't real open source", which comes across to most people as just some weird gate-keeping / No True Scotsman kinda thing.
  - whimsicalism 11mo ago
    no, “No True Scotsman” is just about people not categories like open source

joseda-hg 11mo ago

That's probably better, but Modified MIT is pretty descriptive, I read it as "mostly MIT, but with caveats for extreme cases" which is about right, if you already know what the MIT license entails Whatever name they come up with for a new license will be less useful, because I'll have to figure out that this is what that is

tensor 11mo ago
To me this is highly misleading. The core idea behind MIT is that you can use it for anything, including commercial. A "you can use it for commercial only if you're revenue is small" is not remotely MIT-like. It's commercial with a freemium tier.