[jjk166]

That's the descriptivist take, which is useful for studying informal communication, particularly in languages like english where there is no recognized authority that could prescribe how a language is used.

Many languages, and especially most subsets of languages in technical use are prescribed; however.

Enough people using literally when they mean figuratively will eventually make literally mean figuratively in casual conversation. But no amount of people saying squid when they mean octopus will make squid mean octopus within the marine biology community.

[interroboink]

I think the interesting part comes when the technical community and the non- (or less-) technical community try to communicate, though.

A marine biologist might reasonably talk about an octopus' tentacles, and understand what other people mean when they talk about those tentacles, even though octopuses actually have "arms" in strict terminology.

Similar friction happens with the word "theory" in science or "proof" in mathematics.

But back to the topic: I think enough people use "open source" in a non-rigorous sense that it's worth leaving room for multiple definitions, versus trying to stamp the non-technical ones out. Marine biologists don't generally go around emphatically saying "they're arms, not tentacles!" (well, maybe some do, but mostly in a good-natured, aware-of-how-silly-it-is sense)

[jjk166]

Yeah, but in this case the conversation is on a marine biology site between marine biologists and the distinction between arm and tentacle is fundamentally meaningful to the conversation.

[interroboink]

I agree that the distinction is meaningful, but I suppose I disagree that it is safe to assume that everyone on HN has the same outlook towards the issue — we are not all developers, nor are we all involved in Open Source proper, nor do we all have the same background. In other words: we are not all marine biologists from the same school, I don't think.

Sorry to have tortured your metaphor so much (:

[bruce511]

You are completely right, but...

I'd suggest that forums like this are good at being specific about terminology, and rigorous about its application.

In other words you, and others, may have used Open Source incorrectly in the past, and may learn from this thread so you don't I the future.

Perhaps your analogy would better apply to Open Source versus Free Software. That's more akin to octopus and squid. Open Source to commercial is more like talking about tentacles when describing a whale.