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by yjftsjthsd-h 858 days ago
It's useful when words mean things. That goes double when the words are used for marketing. Like, yeah in theory it's odd for the OSI to define "Open Source", but in practice it turns out the only people who seem to object to this are people who really want the social capital from calling their stuff open source while actually screwing over the users.
1 comments

I think there are plenty of arguments for non-OSI approved licences and I don't think "screwing over their users" is even remotely close to why people choose them.
It's perfectly acceptable to use whatever license you want, but then don't call it "open source."
You should stop using the generic term open source if what you really mean is Open Source InitiativeⓇ OSI Certified™ license.
Likewise, you should stop using the term open source if what you really mean is source available [0], especially with usage restrictions.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software

I myself rarely use the term "open source" but this does not stop others from (mis)using it. The mere fact that a term is generic does not mean that it is meaningless. If someone is genuinely unaware or confused about what the rest of the world thinks "open source" means, then I am happy to educate them. But if they are deliberately exploiting mis-use of the term to hide nefarious intent, then they can go to hell.