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Open source does not imply open community

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Re: Open source does not imply open community

#81

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

engeljohnb wrote: post #70
em-bee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

only if you already have the source, the GPL also guarantees that you can get the source even if you don't have it.

I guess that's a pretty good point I never thought about. I've never come across software released under a permissive license that didn't either come with the source code, or host it somewhere convenient like github.

Haven't you? There's quite a bit of closed-source software based on permissively-licensed code. You can get the upstream source for the permissively-licensed code, but not the modifications made to it. Windows (used to) use some BSD-licensed code for a few network utilities like nslookup.

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#82

Post by engeljohnb »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #81
engeljohnb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that's a pretty good point I never thought about. I've never come across software released under a permissive license that didn't either come with the source code, or host it somewhere convenient like github.

Haven't you? There's quite a bit of closed-source software based on permissively-licensed code. You can get the upstream source for the permissively-licensed code, but not the modifications made to it. Windows (used to) use some BSD-licensed code for a few network utilities like nslookup.

I guess I considered that completely separate from open source. For instance, I've heard that MacOS is "based on BSD," but since MacOS itself is obviously not open source, it's not an example of open source software that doesn't provide the Four Freedoms.

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#83

Post by engeljohnb »

evanelias wrote: post #77
engeljohnb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Okay fine, I see it your way. Open source may often imply open community. I'll stop trying to argue that it doesn't. Instead, I posit that open source should not imply open community, even if that's what the originators of the movement intended. I'm leaving my first draft of this comment below because there's a couple of points I just can't help but be a pedant over. > Opening the code is a good thing and there…

> open source should not imply open community, even if that's what the originators of the movement intended. I'd take this a step further and say the intention of the originators of the movement is somewhat irrelevant, because that movement essentially retconned a bunch of pre-existing licenses and concepts. Consider the MIT license, which is OSI-approved but substantially predates the "open source movement" (as do m…

I suppose, but I like to call my software "open source," and it's a little hard to use their name but argue I'm not "one of them."

Granted I only use the term for lack of a better one, I actually prefer calling it Free Software when I'm around people who know the difference. The problem is that it's confusing for everyone else, since I do think it's fine to charge money for my "free software."

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#84

Post by jolmg »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #11
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #7

Greybeard here... let me start by saying I like the cut of the author's jib. I'm old enough to have sat before the elders of the arpanet when there were only 1's and they had to forge about half of them into 0's manually. Another thing about the old ways of making software is projects were often written or maintained by one or two people at a time. The intarwebs at large had their email addresses and mailed them bug…

I laughed at “back when there were only 1’s and they had to forge about half of them into 0’s manually.” Stealing that one.

Weren't holes 1's? Were there machines where it was backwards?

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#85

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

engeljohnb wrote: post #82
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you? There's quite a bit of closed-source software based on permissively-licensed code. You can get the upstream source for the permissively-licensed code, but not the modifications made to it. Windows (used to) use some BSD-licensed code for a few network utilities like nslookup.

I guess I considered that completely separate from open source. For instance, I've heard that MacOS is "based on BSD," but since MacOS itself is obviously not open source, it's not an example of open source software that doesn't provide the Four Freedoms.

Open-source software provides the four freedoms, but doesn't necessarily require preserving them transitively.

GPL software requires preserving them transitively and requires derivative works using the licensed software as a component to provide them.

MPL requires preserving them transitively.

BSD/Apache/MIT don't require preserving them, but still require the resulting software to include the original license & attribution. In the case of a closed-source program distributing (say) MIT-licensed software with proprietary modifications, the resulting binary is still released partly under the MIT license & includes the MIT license text, but doesn't include the source code.

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#86

Post by creatonez »

NordStreamYacht wrote: post #3

The CoC crowd are there to only instigate trouble.

Having posted rules on a forum/mailing list/bug tracker is only done to cause trouble? Really?

Codes of conduct exist because the alternatives are either arbitrary punishment for arbitrary infractions, or complete spamfest anarchy. It baffles me that a crowd that previously preached netiquette are now so against clarity and healthy community. (Though on second thought, maybe this is a Goomba fallacy and the folks that have so much disdain for CoCs are the people who constantly spewed flame wars and spam on 1990s usenet)

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#87

Post by evanelias »

engeljohnb wrote: post #83
evanelias wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> open source should not imply open community, even if that's what the originators of the movement intended. I'd take this a step further and say the intention of the originators of the movement is somewhat irrelevant, because that movement essentially retconned a bunch of pre-existing licenses and concepts. Consider the MIT license, which is OSI-approved but substantially predates the "open source movement" (as do m…

I suppose, but I like to call my software "open source," and it's a little hard to use their name but argue I'm not "one of them." Granted I only use the term for lack of a better one, I actually prefer calling it Free Software when I'm around people who know the difference. The problem is that it's confusing for everyone else, since I do think it's fine to charge money for my "free software."

> it's a little hard to use their name but argue I'm not "one of them."

That's fair, but personally I can't see any reasonable fault with using "open source" in a way that strictly follows the definition in the OSD, and not this intangible unwritten social norm / movement stuff. If they wanted that to be a core part of it, it should have been in their definition to begin with.

And even religiously following their definition for licensing is a bit ridiculous, because they didn't actually invent the term in the first place. Originally, "open" source code was generically understood to mean "the source code is available" without any implications about licensing, let alone community or social norms. For a lot of irrefutable evidence around this, see https://dieter.plaetinck.be/posts/open-source-undefined-part...

So the OSI folks took this previously-generic term and popularized their definition for it, creating a movement around it. They even attempted to trademark it, and were explicitly rejected due to the term being too descriptive/generic.

Nonetheless, I personally avoid calling software "open source" if it uses a non-OSI-approved "source available" license, but that's purely because the many OSI zealots are very vocal, and they defend the term purely through social pressure.

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#88

Post by ValdikSS »

em-bee wrote: post #73
ValdikSS wrote: post #16

- FOSS applications don't have to be distributed publicly — that's only the common social expectation - FOSS does not imply that the code should be available for non-customers. The developer decides who is the customer. - FOSS is *encouraged* to be sold for money, *you can sell others' software, even if it's originally free of charge* (see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html) - Open-source licensed with no…

Open-source licensed with non-free license is still open-source, although non-FOSS nope. there are only a few licenses approved by OSI that are not also considered Free Software. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html look at the long list of GPL incompatible Free Software licenses. btw "open source that is non-FOSS" makes no sense because FOSS literally means Free and Open Source Software"

>there are only a few licenses approved by OSI that are not also considered Free Software

This is what I'm trying to conterpoint: you're thinking of "Free software" as in legal definition of GNU (4 freedoms), and "Open Source software" as in legal definition of OSI (10 points), in terms of the licenses approved by these organizations.

Users see open-source as a combination of legal/social/community expectations, as a phenomenon. Overwhelming majority of the software have only legal license, and nothing more, and oftentimes the developer themselves don't know what their social behavior should be, they're forming it given the circumstances.

We focused ONLY on the legal definition of open source for very long, and hardly spent time on the other, IMO much more important things: for whom this software is for, how should you communicate, what should you expect as a user, everything about social aspect, maintenance (which is out of scope of legal definitions of the software, but which made FOSS that appealing).

I've even seen cases where the author changed the license (used "legal measures") to prevent further community from forming around the software (to decimate users, to make the software less appealing to FOSS community), because it was too overwhelming to respond to everyone. Instead of using direct measures (social statements of some kind), they used license as a community control method. The author didn't really want to change the code license, they just didn't know other means to achieve different social expectations/behavior they want.

Re: Open source does not imply open community

#89

Post by throwawaypath »

engeljohnb wrote: post #56
JimDabell wrote: post #25

Open source is not merely a license choice. It is a reformulation of free software to make it more attractive to businesses. The entire point behind open source is that it is more effective for businesses to develop software collaboratively with the public than it is to do it in private. So yes, open source does imply open community. If you want to dump code onto the public with a permissive license but not develop t…

Why is everyone in this thread ignoring the fact that the world already had this debate 30 years ago, so the OSI published a document clearly specifying what is and isn't Open Source? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition It doesn't say anything about collaborative development.

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