[Flimm]

No, it's not. The Llama 3 Community License Agreement is not an open source license. Open source licenses need to meet the criteria of the only widely accepted definition of "open source", and that's the one formulated by the OSI [0]. This license has multiple restrictions on use and distribution which make it not open source. I know Facebook keeps calling this stuff open source, maybe in order to get all the good will that open source branding gets you, but that doesn't make it true. It's like a company calling their candy vegan while listing one its ingredients as pork-based gelatin. No matter how many times the company advertises that their product is vegan, it's not, because it doesn't meet the definition of vegan.

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

[8note]

Isn't the MIT license the generally accepted "open source" license? It's a community owned term, not OSI owned

[yjftsjthsd-h]

MIT is a permissive open source license, not the open source license.

[henryfjordan]

There are more licenses than just MIT that are "open source". GPL, BSD, MIT, Apache, some of the Creative Commons licenses, etc. MIT has become the defacto default though

https://opensource.org/license (linking to OSI for the list because it's convenient, not because they get to decide)

[NiloCK]

These discussions (ie, everything that follows here) would be much easier if the crowd insisting on the OSI definition of open source would capitalize Open Source.

In English, proper nouns are capitalized.

"Open" and "source" are both very normal English words. English speakers have "the right" to use them according to their own perspective and with personal context. It's the difference between referring to a blue tooth, and Bluetooth, or to an apple store or an Apple store.

[CamperBob2]

Open source licenses need to meet the criteria of the only widely accepted definition of "open source", and that's the one formulated by the OSI [0]

Who died and made OSI God?

[MaxBarraclough]

This isn't helpful. The community defers to the OSI's definition because it captures what they care about.

We've seen people try to deceptively describe non-OSS projects as open source, and no doubt we will continue to see it. Thankfully the community (including Hacker News) is quick to call it out, and to insist on not cheapening the term.

This is one the topics that just keeps turning up:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24483168

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31203209

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36591820

[CamperBob2]

This isn't helpful. The community...

Speak for yourself, please. The term is much older than 1998, with one easily-Googled example being https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000639879.pdf , and an explicit case of IT-related usage being https://i.imgur.com/Nw4is6s.png from https://www.google.com/books/edition/InfoWarCon/09X3Ove9uKgC... .

Unless a registered trademark is involved (spoiler: it's not) no one, whether part of a so-called "community" or not, has any authority to gatekeep or dictate the terms under which a generic phrase like "open source" can be used.

[Flimm]

Neither of those usages relate to IT, they both are about sources of intelligence (espionage). Even if they were, the OSI definition won, nobody is using the definitions from 1995 CIA or the 1996 InfoConWar book in the realm of IT, not even Facebook.

The community has the authority to complain about companies mis-labelling their pork products as vegan, even if nobody has a registered trademark on the term vegan. Would you tell people to shut up about that case because they don't have a registered trademark? Likewise, the community has authority to complain about Meta/Facebook mis-labelling code as open source even when they put restrictions on usage. It's not gate-keeping or dictatorship to complain about being misled or being lied to.

[CamperBob2]

Would you tell people to shut up about that case because they don't have a registered trademark?

I especially like how I'm the one telling people to "shut up" all of a sudden.

As for the rest, see my other reply.

[Flimm]

You're right, I and those who agree with me were the first to ask people to "shut up", in this case, to ask Meta to stop misusing the term open source. And I was the first to say "shut up", and I know that can be inflammatory and disrespectful, so I shouldn't have used it. I'm sorry. We're here in a discussion forum, I want you to express your opinion even it is to complain about my complaints. For what it's worth, your counter-arguments have been stronger and better referenced than any other I have read (for the case of accepting a looser definition of the term open source in the realm of IT).

[vbarrielle]

The OSI was created about 20 years ago and defined and popularized the term open source. Their definition has been widely accepted over that period.

Recently, companies are trying to market things as open source when in reality, they fail to adhere to the definition.

I think we should not let these companies change the meaning of the term, which means it's important to explain every time they try to seem more open than they are.

I'm afraid the battle is being lost though.

[Suppafly]

>The OSI was created about 20 years ago and defined and popularized the term open source. Their definition has been widely accepted over that period.

It was defined and accepted by the community well before OSI came around though.