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It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

drewdevault.com

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Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#71

Post by falcolas »

thrower123 wrote: post #62
emersion wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the point. The point is: stop calling open-source stuff that isn't. You shouldn't lie to your users.

Open-source doesn't necessarily imply everything that the FOSS and GPL folks think it does outside of their semantic bubble. It's one of those bastardized terms that has become so mangled and situationally-dependent as to be almost meaningless. For a significant number of people "open-source" just means, "I found this on GitHub"

Do you consider Microsoft Windows, or Oracle database to be open source software? Because the source code is viewable (albeit under an NDA).

Open source does have a specific meaning, and twisting it like this does nobody any favors.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#72

Post by Flimm »

Flimm wrote: post #55
staticassertion wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of the OSD. I'm referring to open source in the sense of the source code being made available.

There is only one commonly accepted definition of open source. Just making the source code available is not enough, you also have to grant the right to be able to use the software for commercial purposes, etc. See: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

@hoaw All I'm asking is that they don't use the terms "open source" for something that isn't. If people are trying to change the only commonly accepted definition of "open source", then I'm asking that they stop. Semantic diffusion needs to be resisted. Is it too much to ask that we don't allow the term "open source" to have less and less meaning? Is it too much to ask to use terms like "shared source" or "source available" instead of the oxymoron "non-commercial open source"?

You make an interesting point about patent clauses. I think I would say that it isn't the OSI-approved licenses that make a project unusable commercially, it is the patents that companies hold. OSI classifies licenses as they stand alone, it doesn't classify patents or declare projects as safe from patents.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#73

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

BeetleB wrote: post #69
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term most people use for this is "source available". Calling it "open source" is misleading, and continuing to call it that after it's been pointed out to you is flatly dishonest.

>The term most people use for this is "source available". Calling it "open source" is misleading, and continuing to call it that after it's been pointed out to you is flatly dishonest. Given how every Reddit/HN thread I come across has an argument on whether it is appropriate to use open source in this context, I strongly disagree with the phrase "most people". In my experience, most people call it open source, and i…

There is a loud minority of people who disagree, mainly people who are wondering if in the future they can exploit open source community in a similar manner. The term "open source" is a trademark of the Open Source Initiative and has a clear, unambiguous meaning.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#74

Post by thrower123 »

falcolas wrote: post #71
thrower123 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open-source doesn't necessarily imply everything that the FOSS and GPL folks think it does outside of their semantic bubble. It's one of those bastardized terms that has become so mangled and situationally-dependent as to be almost meaningless. For a significant number of people "open-source" just means, "I found this on GitHub"

Do you consider Microsoft Windows, or Oracle database to be open source software? Because the source code is viewable (albeit under an NDA). Open source does have a specific meaning, and twisting it like this does nobody any favors.

No, I'm well aware of what open-source is supposed to mean, as opposed to shared-source or whatever the proper term is for that type of arrangement.

I just try to deal with the world as it is, and the damage has been done already to the popular meaning of the term. I don't have the energy or interest to tilt at this particular wind-mill, so at this point if somebody says something is open-source, unless I have prior knowledge of what they think open-source means, I can't really infer anything in particular, and have to ask some more questions.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#75

Post by bunderbunder »

BeetleB wrote: post #69
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term most people use for this is "source available". Calling it "open source" is misleading, and continuing to call it that after it's been pointed out to you is flatly dishonest.

>The term most people use for this is "source available". Calling it "open source" is misleading, and continuing to call it that after it's been pointed out to you is flatly dishonest. Given how every Reddit/HN thread I come across has an argument on whether it is appropriate to use open source in this context, I strongly disagree with the phrase "most people". In my experience, most people call it open source, and i…

How far we've come.

I remember back in 2001, when Reddit and HN didn't exist yet, and the whole Internet was caught up in a seemingly unanimous furor about how, not only were most of Microsoft's just-released Shared Source licenses not open source, but even the ones like MS-PL that met the OSI definition still weren't open source simply because they had Shared Source cooties on them by virtue of being announced at the same time.

I fear that the bad old days were so far back now that people no longer remember why this stuff is important.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#76

Post by koonsolo »

We need a different name for this, so either

- Source-available software (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software)

- Shared source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative)

So that it's clear that source code is available in some form, but it's not open source.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#77

Post by yebyen »

skykooler wrote: post #60
yebyen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hey, you can use this for free if you don't make any money, but we want 10% if you're using this in a paid product Is that an actual license? Because that's not what I've seen most often recently, at all. An honest FOSS license + dual licensed for commercial would say "it's fine if you make money, and we don't need a cut... unless you've integrated our software AND you don't want your final product to be similarly…

Fusion 360 has a license like that - free for personal use, but you have to pay if you use it to make anything you sell.

Fusion 360 is not in any way open code though, right?

I'm thinking of any _open_ product that says you have to pay once your derivative product goes commercial, even if it's also open. That would be decidedly non-free in the sense of restrictive and as an example, this is something that is not compatible with standard GPL, and not included in the basic general BSD/MIT licenses.

My definition of a free license would include the right to sell (any developer hours for bounty, support, stickers, socks, CDs, anything I want for cash, including unmodified copies of your software) without restriction or liability from upstreams, no obligations, other than that I must include the source code and my distribution must also be similarly unencumbered and without additional restrictions.

There's no comparison to be made with "free for personal use, binaries only." (But thanks for advancing the discussion...)

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#78

Post by michaelt »

yebyen wrote: post #35
vorpalhex wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are brownies, but they happen to contain a bit of horse shit. Not a lot, it's just like a tiny sprinkling on top, but they are definitely still brownies! You can't make a substantive change to a license and pretend it's a small deal. You can't hijack core tenants of a license, and then just put a little disclaimer at the bottom. "Buy one get one half off! *The one half off is actually just a plastic model and d…

> Hey, you can use this for free if you don't make any money, but we want 10% if you're using this in a paid product Is that an actual license? Because that's not what I've seen most often recently, at all. An honest FOSS license + dual licensed for commercial would say "it's fine if you make money, and we don't need a cut... unless you've integrated our software AND you don't want your final product to be similarly…

  An honest FOSS license + dual licensed for commercial
  would say "it's fine if you make money, and we don't need
  a cut... unless you've integrated our software AND you
  don't want your final product to be similarly
  open-source."
I think the "problem" the commons clause is aimed at is where AWS starts selling managed deployments of your product, and they make $$$$ from your work without giving you a cut. And maybe your business plan was to do that, but AWS has an existing billing relationship with everyone making them a much lower friction choice.

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#79

Post by yebyen »

michaelt wrote: post #78
yebyen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hey, you can use this for free if you don't make any money, but we want 10% if you're using this in a paid product Is that an actual license? Because that's not what I've seen most often recently, at all. An honest FOSS license + dual licensed for commercial would say "it's fine if you make money, and we don't need a cut... unless you've integrated our software AND you don't want your final product to be similarly…

An honest FOSS license + dual licensed for commercial would say "it's fine if you make money, and we don't need a cut... unless you've integrated our software AND you don't want your final product to be similarly open-source." I think the "problem" the commons clause is aimed at is where AWS starts selling managed deployments of your product, and they make $$$$ from your work without giving you a cut. And maybe your…

So, the model that AGPL was designed to combat, right?

Under the AGPL, Amazon would be free to do that, as long as they released the code for their managed deployment systems.

(This doesn't get you any money, but it saves you from the sense that your FOSS-work has been exploited by a commercial entity that doesn't give anything back, so long as it's actually enforceable.)

Re: It's not okay to pretend your software is open source

#80

Post by Klathmon »

detaro wrote: post #58
Klathmon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that, but I'm asking why we adhere to that? I'd be more than happy to change the definition of "Open Source" if it means that more companies will participate, as doing so won't entirely rob them of most of their income from that product. In fact, I'd consider it a significant improvement over the concept of "open core" that has been becoming more and more popular, where the core 80% of a product is open source,…

I'd personally prefer if the various proposals for these things picked their own term and filled that positively (e.g. one recent example used a label along the lines of "fair licensing"). Many projects have build on the foundation of these principles (E.g. Debian, where they originated, accepts only compliant software in the core distro) Many people feel quite strongly about things that can be perceived as corporate…

Like all good arguments, this one comes down to semantics!

I'm not going to argue about what a word or phrase "should" mean, but I am going to say that I think the FOSS community could benefit from being more open to different views in this area.

I think this is a case of dogmatism (that might not be the right word here, in this case i mean overly adhering to definitions) that is causing the entire community to be worse off.

Similar to how you said many people see the unwillingness to adopt a new term as "infringing on the ideals" of the original, I am seeing an attempt to be more honest and straightforward about the intent and ability to use a product.

GPL and friends "blackmail" companies into wanting to choose the proprietary license. It may not mean to do that, and there is normally no ill intentions, but it does in my experience.

Contrasted to Apache 2 + Common Clause, it's upfront about what you can and can't do. You can use this under the apache 2, unless you want to sell it, and then you can't. There's no need to dance around the fact, or try to play games where you don't "technically" restrict the right to sell, but in practice you do, or you introduce technical complexity to avoid triggering rather arbitrary parts of a license. The "official definition" is causing users to be in a worse position in some cases.

We can argue over semantics until the end of time, but at the end of the day "fair licensing" means nothing to me, but "open source" or "open source with restrictions" does. If the concept of the term "open source" changes, I feel nobody will be really impacted for the worse. Debian won't start suddenly allowing less-free software in their core, they will just continue to use the definition they do now and the list of licenses which are acceptable that they do now. But what will happen is we will see more experimentation with monetization methods that don't rely on loopholes or technicalities in existing licenses to achieve the same thing in practice.

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