| There are many licenses and license models, and there's an already a consensus on what consists of open source software. There are also licenses which shows you the code, but you can't legally reuse parts of it. Even some of the licenses prohibit you from compiling and creating your own version and use it, yet alone study, modify and/or distribute. There are many sinister versions of so-called open source software per your definition. The most famous ones in my book is Microsoft's VSCode and Google's Chrome. Both have "open source" counterparts VSCodium & Chromium, yet they lack the sauce to perform like the closed source one, or is confined to its small space and prevented from operating like the closed source versions. Can we call these crippled versions open source software? Yes, they compile & run, but to what extent? They are intentionally a shadow if their real selves, and this creates a situation where you can see the code but can't use it. They run afoul the idea behind open source by adopting a permissive license, and abusing the license to create the closed source, superior version which is force-fed to users. Even GPL doesn't prohibit selling the software itself or other commercial/for profit uses. It bolsters four freedoms, and make sure that it's continued from generation to generation, maintainer to maintainer. So, just because you don't agree on the ideas, ideals and consensus amongst the developers and open source / free software people, it doesn't give you the license to treat every codebase the way you see fit regardless of the license it contains. |
Did this change?