[eudoxus]

> Finally, OSI doesn’t define the term. They just certify licenses that adhere to open source principles and ideas. The community defines the term. Everyone is free to make up new licenses. OSI just helps the community filter out noise by reviewing licenses that actually are open source.

This is exactly my point, the community defines the term. The OSI definition does a good job of making the legal aspect of (their vision for) "open source" explicit, but it also adds additional definitions beyond what the average layperson might consider "Open Source".

Take section 5 and 6 of the "Open Source Definition"[0]. It states you can't discriminate against "persons, groups, fields, or endeavors". So if I wrote some software, put a MIT license on it, with a single additional clause that says the CIA can not use this software. Magically, it is no longer "Open Source" according to the OSI, even though 99.9999% of people can freely use it under the MIT.

[0]: https://opensource.org/osd

They have a definition, they even have a pretty good definition, but the OSI shouldn't be the definition. All OSI licenses are open source licenses, but not all open source licenses are OSI licenses. (All thumbs are fingers, not all fingers are thumbs).

[prepend]

> So if I wrote some software, put a MIT license on it, with a single additional clause that says the CIA can not use this software.

Right, because it’s not open source and not MIT. Open source isn’t about 99.999% of people being able to use it, it’s about be free and open.

This is the commonly accepted definition of open source and there’s very few who would consider your custom license open source.

Practically speaking, it means I can’t use it even though I’m not in the CIA because I want my project to be compatible and reusable down the line by anyone. So I use a true OSI license like MIT and want all the software I link to and use compatible so users have a clear expectation.

You can make your new license, but I don’t want to use it as I only want to use open source licenses.

I don’t want to hire an attorney to review your license and see if it works or not. I want to just filter by known licenses and make sure they are compatible with my other licenses.

There are open source licenses that aren’t OSI, but they are pretty few and OSI works diligently to review new licenses and add them.

Your example license isn’t open source though, so it doesn’t fit this small group.

[rat9988]

"This is the commonly accepted definition of open source and there’s very few who would consider your custom license open source."

You might think so but I disagree.

[prepend]

Yes, it’s a free country. That’s why we have consensus.

1000 people misusing the term means the term changes. 1 person misusing the term is just a jerk.

I’m always suspicious when people overloading a term are all doing it for personal benefit (ie, promoting their product).

I think consensus is around OSI now, but it could change. I might not be right in the future, but I think I’m right now.