Kod.app is open source

> You might ask, what essential liberty am I excluding by adding the modification clause? Ironically, nothing.

A few sentences later he contradicts that statement by defining what he means by "nothing":

> If I charged $15, someone could ask $8 and undercut me with little effort on their part.

So he denies to others the freedom to distribute the software, which is an essential part of the Open Source term (as well as the Free Software term, which has essentially the same meaning).

Until now, this could have been a plain misunderstanding of the term Open Source. However, a few sentences later the author explains that he deliberately wants to misuse the term Open Source:

> Then I’d have to make the choice to either sell [the app on App store] or open-source the app. I wanted to do both.

So he wants to claim to do Open Source without actually doing Open Source. This is really unfair on all developers who are really doing Open Source.

Note that there is nothing wrong with that business model, but claiming the name "Open Source" for that kind of business is a clear misuse of the term. Open Source has another, well-defined meaning.

The author is perfectly right that with any Open Source license, even as restrictive as GPL or AGPL, you can't make a lot of money by selling copies. This is not an accident, but by design! That's why real Open Source developers sell services around their products, such as support, implementation of customer wishes, etc.

If he doesn't want to do business that way, it's fine! But then he shouldn't claim to do Open Source.

This is only true for day-to-day words. However, legal words and technical terms need strict, stable definitions that are equally understood at least by all experts in that field. Otherwise, serious communication would become next to impossible, let alone serious discussions.

> For example, my dictionary states:

Dictionaries don't provide exact definitions. However, your quoted description seems to be the best you can get out of three lines. If you care to read 4-6 lines, you'll get the quite accurate FSF definition. If you care to read even 10+ lines, you'll get the detailed OSI definition.

> Indeed, this definition is more in line with what many people think when they hear "open source".

That's an important issue. Neither the term Free Software nor the term Open Source are completely self-explanatory. So people will inevitably have misconceptions about those if they've neither read a proper definition, nor had someone explaining it well enough to them.

The concrete issue with the term "Free Software" is that people might think: Oh, this software is free (no cost), so it must be Free Software. Eric S. Raymond and others tried to solve that problem by inventing a new synonym, "Open Source".

However, the term "Open Source" has issues as well, because people might think: Oh, the source code lies open in front of me, so it must be Open Source.

Note that this is a general problem. Hardly any technical term is totally self-evident to ordinary people. Just because a technical term is not self-explanatory doesn't mean you can simply ignore its exact definition.