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I agree with this. The new definition of "open source" has been crafted out of malice. _Anyone_ new to programming runs into this confusion, and that's evidence in itself.
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'Source available' is not open source, and that's okay
151–160 of 172 posts
Re: 'Source available' is not open source, and that's okay
#152> Look, the term "open source" has a specific, shared meaning
Maybe with the HN crowd. The fact is, the term "open source", being made from two common words with actual specific, shared meanings, unfortunately together create a common-sense meaning that is NOT the "specific, shared" meaning that the Open Source Initiative defines it as. Furthermore, a lot of people like the common-sense definition better than the OSI definition.
Re: 'Source available' is not open source, and that's okay
#153Personally I think differentiation between "open source" and "source available" is good. Open source, is, essentially software that I expect to be able to use commercially and tweak if required - but I'm own my own, and I pay for support. Source available means I can basically help debug issues I have...but I expect that a paid licence is required and will have a selection of limitations (number of nodes, etc).
Most source-available licenses that I've encountered have no paid license requirements for users . They only require a paid license if you want to sell the product commercially. Normally, you're still allowed to use the software as a piece of a larger commercial product, as long as it does not compete with the original author, or "substantially reproduce the functionality" of the source-available bits, depending on t…
While it's true that this the kind of "source available" license the article is talking about, other examples exist.
For instance, the source code to Epic's Unreal Engine[1] is hosted in a private GitHub repo, accessible by anyone who agrees to a clickthrough license, and free for personal, educational, and commercial use up to $1 million gross revenue, at which point royalty payments are required.
Re: 'Source available' is not open source, and that's okay
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is another, I think different, form of "source available" that I've seen a bit lately, similarly from corporate/commercial sponsors: the source code is released under an OSI approved license (e.g. BSD, GPL licence) and the owner maintains and develops the code in an ongoing fashion, but there is no way to easily interface with the developers, contribute changes back to the project, nor is there any public fac…
I agree that it started that way, but that does not mean norms and expectations don't shift. To me, acting like it's 1980 is weird. The majority of maintained open source projects today are single-source-of-truth projects, not source code drops from unreachable invisible teams. There is a reason for that -- it's part of what makes the projects usable and dependable.
I think allowing the definition of open source to be muddled would be a big mistake, especially now that some entities are trying to whittle away users' rights while continuing to benefit from the positive vibes of open source. The OSDI/DFSG/FSF definition is a clear, simple line in the sand that has served the movement very well; there's no reason to change it. Yes some entities actively participate in their community and others do the bare minimum, but it's always going to be possible to be more or less communitarian.
Re: 'Source available' is not open source, and that's okay
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They have the source code. This can also be true, say, of a dump of leaked Windows source code. Would you say that that's Open Source? Why not? What's different between that and Fizzy? Fizzy's creators will also sue you in certain cases. > Why is it so important that they can use it for whatever they want? It's important only in terms of the ethics of calling yourself open. The OSI (and many other commenters here,…
The leak is not open source because it was not blessed by the creators. If we're worried about rug pull stuff, maybe there's some type of governance or commitments that can be worked out. Ultimately yeah we're at the whim of the company, but that's the status quo, this still seems like a step in the right direction to be encouraged and fostered and not shit on. I just don't think the hardline strategy is really winni…
Shit on, hardline, ornery, benign, selfish, good faith are loaded words. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine.[1]
> Ultimately yeah we're at the whim of the company, but that's the status quo, this still seems like a step in the right direction to be encouraged and fostered and not shit on. I just don't think the hardline strategy is really winning hearts and minds to the cause.
This is not the status quo in open source. And open source has been very successful. Open source is the status quo of much software.
Do you imagine many companies would make their proprietary programs source available if and only if they could call it open source? I do not.
> In practice, with a license like this, are people doing benign things hunted down and hassled?
Selling software as a service is benign in open source. And do you understand the question of if the license is good or acceptable and if the license should be called open source are different?
> I recall the brouhaha over the "don't do evil" license.
Your point was what?
> Can't we find a good-faith agreement between interests?
Anyone can use any license they want. Anyone can invent a new term if they consider common terms inadequate. Using a common term misleadingly intentionally and calling people triggered show bad faith.[2]
Re: 'Source available' is not open source, and that's okay
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I share your sentiment and would love to expand how I feel as if even AGPL isn't enough for cloud providers like Amazon, Google etc. which can just technically run it on their servers without too much modifications or release the modifications and still compete against the original AGPL party Personally I get worried that even AGPL might not be enough for me if I create a service which faces the public because if it…
That's why SSPL was created. People working in tech companies have expressed extreme vitriol for SSPL - I wonder why. The SSPL isn't the best designed license, but it is "more AGPL than AGPL"
SSPL doesn't help with the real problem that SSPL/etc companies complain about though; that AWS won't give you money when they turn your software into a service and will compete with you to reduce your income.
Of course, the license is kind of irrelevant to that situation, Amazon will just reimplement your stuff from scratch if it is popular enough.
Re: 'Source available' is not open source, and that's okay
#157I'm reminded of Drew's 2021 post:
https://drewdevault.com/2021/01/20/FOSS-is-to-surrender-your...
Re: 'Source available' is not open source, and that's okay
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Giving the users source code and no rights to do anything with it really doesn't give them very much. Software freedom advocates are not just nerds who really enjoy reading source code. The point is that if you have the source code and the right to change it then you take control of the activity the software is doing, or helping you to do. If you don't have control, being able to read the source code is not very usef…
Well certainly there is some reasonable middle ground between everything and nothing, which is presumably what licenses like this one are trying to explore? People are afforded rights beyond just looking at it, they can run it, modify it, learn from it, there's just some specific things that are carved out (to my understanding as a layperson). Every major voice that I've seen comment on this thus far seems to acknowl…
> Would you say that the "free software" and "open source" movements are largely synonymous?
Would you say Canadians and Americans are largely synonymous? They have many shared interests. There are many dual citizens. The differences are subtle often.
> The best arguments I've seen in this thread revolve around the idea that you can trust that you can pull an "open source" library into your project without hesitation. That is a beautiful "free as in libre" building blocks vision.
Several people highlighted a key idea of open source and free software is you can run an open source program without hesitation. This was not beautiful? These arguments were inferior?
> But the software in question here is a completed end-user product. It's not ever intended to be used in another project.
Libraries used parts of programs. Programs became libraries. Programs evolved into different programs.
> But they want to make some kind of good-faith effort to share and be more "open" than normal proprietary SaaS. Instead of this being a good thing it's a huge drama because it's not enough. At least that's my read.
I don't know how the submitted article could have contradicted this more clearly.
Re: 'Source available' is not open source, and that's okay
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's why SSPL was created. People working in tech companies have expressed extreme vitriol for SSPL - I wonder why. The SSPL isn't the best designed license, but it is "more AGPL than AGPL"
SSPL doesn't help with the real problem that SSPL/etc companies complain about though; that AWS won't give you money when they turn your software into a service and will compete with you to reduce your income. Of course, the license is kind of irrelevant to that situation, Amazon will just reimplement your stuff from scratch if it is popular enough.
Okay? You might as well not make it easy for them by letting them copy your software verbatim? What's this argument that since life isn't fair you might as well just give up and help the evil people? People following this argument are one reason evil people are so powerful.
Re: 'Source available' is not open source, and that's okay
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
The leak is not open source because it was not blessed by the creators. If we're worried about rug pull stuff, maybe there's some type of governance or commitments that can be worked out. Ultimately yeah we're at the whim of the company, but that's the status quo, this still seems like a step in the right direction to be encouraged and fostered and not shit on. I just don't think the hardline strategy is really winni…
Shit on, hardline, ornery, benign, selfish, good faith are loaded words. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine.[1] > Ultimately yeah we're at the whim of the company, but that's the status quo, this still seems like a step in the right direction to be encouraged and fostered and not shit on. I just don't think the hardline strategy is really winning hearts and minds to the cause. This is not the status quo in open…
I will give you shit on, hardline, and selfish - my apologies. I need to slow down.
By status quo I meant the closed source / proprietary world, which also supports a lot of open source projects with contributions and funding. Source available would seem, to me, to be creating an avenue to move closed things in a more open direction, and bring more people "into the fold", per sé.
> And do you understand the question of if the license is good or acceptable and if the license should be called open source are different?
That question was motivated by the several comments expressing fears of being sued. I'm curious if there is a pattern of behavior among source available projects driving that, or if it's more just in principle. It was somewhat orthogonal to the question of calling it open source.
> Your point was what?
Fair—but, my point was that, there are people that are trying to do good things for humanity (not talking about DHH here), and open source is trying to do good things for humanity, and I don't know it just sucks to see them at odds and divided. But I do understand better the functional definition of open source and the zeroth freedom, even if it still feels a bit dogmatic to me. Or maybe just a clash between libertarian and liberal ideals.