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by marcosdumay
278 days ago
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Open source is open source. There exists no gradient there. If your software isn't open source, don't claim it is. You are free to try to normalize your licensing preferences. Even better if you have a nice name for them that don't try to mislead people into thinking they are something they clearly aren't. > I think the world would be a much better place if we just changed the definition of open source to include such licenses. You are free to think that. I'm quite certain it's not correct, but nothing stops you. Anyway, you can make a positive change on the world you actually live on by being honest and clear about what your license does, and communicating why you think it's a good thing. Again, it's a huge plus if you get some nice name that can actually mean the thing your license is. > normal everyday use of the term would already include them Normal and everyday use of "open source" does absolutely not include the licenses you are talking about. |
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>Open source is open source. There exists no gradient there.
Of course there does. If there wasn't a gradient there wouldn't be so many different licenses, there wouldn't be a huge debate anytime on HN anytime someone brings up the definition of open source, and there wouldn't be people constantly arguing about whether licensing requirements constitute restrictions.
OSI is just some group funded by initially by Tim O'Reilly (but now by, Google, MS, Intel and the rest of big tech) to co-opt the free software movement and turn it into something business friendly. They took an already in use phrase, built an ad campaign around it and added a specific bullet point to the definition that said you can't restrict open source software from commercial use.
>Normal and everyday use of "open source" does absolutely not include the licenses you are talking about.
I guarantee you that the majority of people using the term "open source" are using something closer to the dictionary definition than the OSI definition. The average software developer has never even read the OSI definition.
The dictionary definition is
"denoting software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified."
Nothing in this precludes banning Nazis, or large businesses, or certain governments from using it.
The OSI definition includes that, but adds some technical specifics--one of which is that there can't be "discrimination between uses, including commercial use".
If you want to use the phrase "OSI approved open source", that's fine, but there's a reason OSI doesn't have a trademark for the term. They don't own it. Tim O'Reilly can kick rocks with this word policing.