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by pvg 1017 days ago
I'm reading between the lines and overstating this, you can refer to the last time this came up.

"Open Source" was wrongly added to the title by the poster. It's not used on the site to describe the engine.

1 comments

It is literally in top menu bar.

Leading to page that says that Defond is not actually open source.

"has navigation that takes you to open source stuff" is not "claims it's open source". The title is just wrong and they have clearly fixed the thing people were complaining about last time. It's not reading between the lines, it's simply misreading.
> we no longer use the term "Open Source" as to not confuse it with the OSD.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235217>

What am I misreading?

They don't use the term "Open Source" to describe their engine. They used to, years ago, and now they don't.
> We have updated the website to reflect this and we no longer use the term "Open Source"

They didn't say they were going to "no longer use the term (with respect to the Defold engine)". They said weren't using it. Why? Precisely so "as to not confuse it with the OSD". Let's recap:

They used to use the term "open source" (one part of an overall effort to misrepresent themselves and their work). Then they said they took it out—which means that if the term is there now—and it is there now—then they either didn't actually take it out, or they took it out and then put it back in, even after saying they were "sorry for misrepresenting the license under which we make the source code available".

Prevaricating on the whether or not a known bad actor is technically wrong in sidling up next to a line they've already once crossed isn't a defense of the subject of here—because the subject is not strictly confined to whether or not they are crossing it now. It is the very fact that they've indisputably crossed line before, admitted to it and issued a presumed sincere apology when called out, and yet here they are—reaping the rewards of the misleading[1] way in which their messaging is being perceived (again).

1. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/misleading>

'Prevaricating', 'known bad actor', all of this is your gloss on something that happened 3 years ago and a response to the wrong title. . They didn't write the title and have a nav bar that mentions open source. Lots of companies with closed source products have open source navbars, entire open source-titled sites. It's a boring high-dudgeon tangent.
In my opinion they intentionally keep it misleading. And fact that every once in a while someone posts about their project with "open source" in title is good proof that it does confuse a lot of people.
It's proof that someone got something wrong in a title, a thing that happens on HN multiple times a day.