Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by cayley_graph 440 days ago
Yes, agree with the rest of the article but "open source" most certainly does _not_ include "source-available". This is true regardless of which side of the permissive-vs-copyleft issue you fall on. Being obtuse about things like this dilutes the term, which I suspect is the desired outcome. To be clear, there's nothing particularly wrong with source-available programs; they simply do not rise to the level of benefits offered by open source programs.
1 comments

I'm personally not even super bent out of shape about some licensing schemes that are technically not OSD-compliant being called "open source" (i.e. ones that have targeted field-of-endeavor restrictions). There's at least a debate to be had. But what this article includes in its definition -- source code tossed over the wall that you're not allowed to do anything with -- is not anywhere close to what anybody has been calling "open source" for decades.