5 ms·

While most people follow the OSD criteria, there is nothing that says open source software must follow it. Nor is the OSD the only set of criteria or the only d

While most people follow the OSD criteria, there is nothing that says open source software must follow it. Nor is the OSD the only set of criteria or the only definition. Open source means the source is available. Anything else is just political.

nativeit 10mo ago
Now you get to graduate into the pedantry of defining the word “source”.
- ecb_penguin 10mo ago
  There's no reason for pedantry. Source is pretty well defined.
  - immibis 10mo ago
    Which is how we know that AI models don't have any - and therefore can't be open source.
    - Aachen 10mo ago
      Still blows my mind that "binaries available" is called open source in the machine learning sphere. It's like calling Office 2007 open source (as opposed to the current browser versions) because you could run the binaries on a local machine
_flux 10mo ago
> Open source means the source is available. Anything else is just political. Where was that defined so? And most of all, given the domain of information technology, who understand open source to cover cases where the source is available ie. only for reviewing? The purpose of words and terms is so that people can exchange ideas effectively and precisely, without needing to explain the terms every time from the grounds up. Having different groups having divergent definitions on the same words is counterproductive towards that goal. In my view, labeling a release "open source" with very big limitations on how the source is used is just not about marketing, it's miscommunication. If "open source" and "source available" (and "open weights") mean the same thing, the how come people have come up with the two terms to begin with? The difference is recognized in official contexts as well, i.e. https://web.archive.org/web/20180724032116/https://dodcio.defense.gov/Open-Source-Software-FAQ/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180724032116/https://dodcio.de... (search for "source available"; unfortunately linking directly doesn't seem to work with archive.org pages). It doesn't seem there is any benefit in using less precise terms when better-defined ones are available.
- ecb_penguin 10mo ago
  [flagged]
swiftcoder 10mo ago
> Open source means the source is available. Anything else is just political. We don't have to have this debate again. Folks have tried this rhetorical tack so often there is an entire wikipedia page[1] dedicated to explaining the difference between source available and open source... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software
- ecb_penguin 10mo ago
  This is an opinion article and you should realize that opinions do not make definitions. "Conversely, Richard Stallman argues the "obvious meaning" of term "open source" is that the source code is public/accessible for inspection, without necessarily any other rights granted" See, here's another Wikipedia article with another opinion that disagrees, and RMS is obviously an authority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source#%22Open%22_versus_%22free%22_versus_%22free_and_open%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source#%22Open%22_versus_... All of this is pointless so the common and accepted definition should be preferred. Which does not add extra political criteria for requirements.
  - circuit10 10mo ago
    In my experience the common and accepted definition generally matches with the one the OSI uses, people generally use “shared source” or something to refer to things that don’t fit that
    - ecb_penguin 10mo ago
      Well, you'd be wrong: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open-source https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open-source In case you don't know, the dictionary doesn't prescribe meaning, it catalogs the commonly accepted usage of a word. That's why it listed "literally" to mean "figuratively", because along the way, people started using "literally" to mean "figuratively", so that's the definition now. The common definition of open source does not match the OSI definition... > people generally use “shared source” or something "Shared source" was a Microsoft license and not at all generally accepted by anyone. A quick Google search found no references to this term used to describe open source.

nativeit 10mo ago

Now you get to graduate into the pedantry of defining the word “source”.

ecb_penguin 10mo ago
There's no reason for pedantry. Source is pretty well defined.
- immibis 10mo ago
  Which is how we know that AI models don't have any - and therefore can't be open source.
  - Aachen 10mo ago
    Still blows my mind that "binaries available" is called open source in the machine learning sphere. It's like calling Office 2007 open source (as opposed to the current browser versions) because you could run the binaries on a local machine

_flux 10mo ago

> Open source means the source is available. Anything else is just political. Where was that defined so? And most of all, given the domain of information technology, who understand open source to cover cases where the source is available ie. only for reviewing? The purpose of words and terms is so that people can exchange ideas effectively and precisely, without needing to explain the terms every time from the grounds up. Having different groups having divergent definitions on the same words is counterproductive towards that goal. In my view, labeling a release "open source" with very big limitations on how the source is used is just not about marketing, it's miscommunication. If "open source" and "source available" (and "open weights") mean the same thing, the how come people have come up with the two terms to begin with? The difference is recognized in official contexts as well, i.e. https://web.archive.org/web/20180724032116/https://dodcio.defense.gov/Open-Source-Software-FAQ/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180724032116/https://dodcio.de... (search for "source available"; unfortunately linking directly doesn't seem to work with archive.org pages). It doesn't seem there is any benefit in using less precise terms when better-defined ones are available.

ecb_penguin 10mo ago
[flagged]

swiftcoder 10mo ago

> Open source means the source is available. Anything else is just political. We don't have to have this debate again. Folks have tried this rhetorical tack so often there is an entire wikipedia page[1] dedicated to explaining the difference between source available and open source... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software

ecb_penguin 10mo ago
This is an opinion article and you should realize that opinions do not make definitions. "Conversely, Richard Stallman argues the "obvious meaning" of term "open source" is that the source code is public/accessible for inspection, without necessarily any other rights granted" See, here's another Wikipedia article with another opinion that disagrees, and RMS is obviously an authority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source#%22Open%22_versus_%22free%22_versus_%22free_and_open%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source#%22Open%22_versus_... All of this is pointless so the common and accepted definition should be preferred. Which does not add extra political criteria for requirements.
- circuit10 10mo ago
  In my experience the common and accepted definition generally matches with the one the OSI uses, people generally use “shared source” or something to refer to things that don’t fit that
  - ecb_penguin 10mo ago
    Well, you'd be wrong: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open-source https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open-source In case you don't know, the dictionary doesn't prescribe meaning, it catalogs the commonly accepted usage of a word. That's why it listed "literally" to mean "figuratively", because along the way, people started using "literally" to mean "figuratively", so that's the definition now. The common definition of open source does not match the OSI definition... > people generally use “shared source” or something "Shared source" was a Microsoft license and not at all generally accepted by anyone. A quick Google search found no references to this term used to describe open source.