[xyzzy_plugh]

I'm sympathetic but this is an uphill battle unworthy of fighting, in my opinion. Canonicalization of "open source" (versus "OSI Approved Open Source") is overreach of a an organization suffering from declining relevance. OSI is not helping to move the needle on licensing, and has effectively caused the industry to become frozen in time with the same stagnating licenses we had 10-15+ years ago. There's no innovation here, and I'm just tired of this. Instead we have demonic machinations like the BSL growing in relevance because there's no better alternative. I'm just so sick of it.

If you asked any reasonable person what the opposite of "closed source" is, you're going to get a uniform answer from the vast majority or respondents, and a small, irritating answer from a small, increasingly irrelevant group group of folks. I understand the distinction that "source available" aspires to achieve, but it's such an unappetizing term of art that you may as well call it "I can't believe it's not open source".

Champagne, Chocolate, Open Source... they're all noble but doomed uphill battles in colloquialism. Everyone knows what you mean.

If you want to be correct, be truly pedantic, instead of shifting the ambiguity: French Champagne, Belgian Chocolate, OSI Approved License.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a diehard FOSS supporter, I sponsor and contribute, I encourage my employers to be good global citizens with respect to FOSS and have complied with licenses by releasing modifications under appropriate licenses. I even pay Drew DeVault money. But ultimately he and everyone else arguing to enshrine the term "open source" will couple the fate of their opinions to that of the OSI and at best, it will all be a footnote in the pages of history.

Will we be using the same OSI approved licenses in 10, 50, 100, 1000 years? Will the OSI permit term "open source" to be used to refer to something other than the current licenses?

[djur]

The reason to defend the definition of "open source" as it currently stands is to prohibit organizations from profiting from the accumulated goodwill of the open source community and movement without actually adhering to the ethical standards of that movement. We've seen in the past that companies will release source under an encumbered license and claim to be "open" as a result -- the FSF and OSI were founded in response to that type of maneuver.

As far as I can tell, it's been a success. The recent batch of nonfree licenses have all had to emphasize that they are not open source in the face of public backlash. Making euphemisms like "source available" unappetizing is exactly the point.

Furthermore, the OSI is just a group, as is the FSF. If the OSI and FSF folded tomorrow the definitions of "open source" and "free software" would not change. It's not necessary for the OSI to approve a license for the software to be open source, so "OSI Approved License" is not sufficient. "Licensed on terms compatible with the Open Source Definition" might be more accurate, but "open source" seems like an adequate shorthand.

[xyzzy_plugh]

> It's not necessary for the OSI to approve a license for the software to be open source

I agree with you, but this is a controversial opinion which is the root of my frustration. OSI tries really hard to own "open source" as a term and while I'm not against the OSD I am against the gate keeping I see.

[josephcsible]

Why is wanting Open Source to have a single, well-defined meaning a bad thing? If you let everyone who uses words make up their own meanings, isn't https://xkcd.com/1860/ where you end up?

[xyzzy_plugh]

Because it's gatekeeping. If the OSI rules my license doesn't meet the OSD am I going to be socially exiled for labeling my software as open source?

Like any person or institution, the OSI is fallible. It's like saying that only a certain organization can define what Red is, and now look what we have with Pantone.

[djur]

This seems like a hypothetical concern. Has anybody actually had a problem with a clearly OSD-compliant license not being approved? Has anybody been "socially exiled" for not using an OSI-approved license?

[josephcsible]

Should people who sell food get to make up their own definitions of "kosher", "halal", "vegan", etc., without being "socially exiled"? If not, what's the difference between that and this?

And this is nothing like what Adobe and Pantone did.

[xyzzy_plugh]

That's a pretty terrible analogy. Etymologically they bear no resemblance to "open source". A better analogy would be "low fat" or "sugar free".

The more appropriate analogy would be if the Sugar Free Initiative defined "sugar free" and then you correct me by saying "actually that beverage isn't sugar free, it's artificially sweetened".

The world would be a better, more accessible place if we instead focused on what things are or are not, like preferring "OSI Approved License" over "open source" rather than needlessly conflate complex meaning with otherwise simple terminology.