this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Emulation
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Exactly my thoughts. The project is going to remain open source, but not free. I hate when people fail to recognize the difference between free software and open source software.
According to the definition from the Open Source Initiative, "open source" also requires free redistribution. See the first point (emphasis mine).
It also requires freedom to distribute modifications:
CC-BY-NC-ND is not "open source" (both due to the NC and the ND), it's more of a "source available" type of license (when applied to source code). The difference between "free software" and "open source" is more ideological than anything else, they both define the same freedoms, just with different ideological objectives / goals.
And there is nothing wrong with folks choosing such licences—especially if trying to get paid or not exploited.
I guess it's better than not providing any source code. What's wrong is calling it "open source" when it isn't.
VVVVVV and Anodyne are some examples of "source available" games.
Not what I am arguing, but we do have two issues: 1) naming/branding for these types of licenses 2) FOSS banshees acting like these licenses aren’t acceptable & the whole idea is binary good or evil
As long as we don't call them free, libre, or open source I don't care. We shouldn't make the terminology any more confusing for those.
There’s limited vocab to choose from & source available isn’t an appealing one
Yeah, it definitely is more appealing from a marketing perspective.
I do understand why some projects might wanna use the term, it's to their advantage to be associated with "open source" even if the source code itself has a proprietary license.
The problem is that then it makes it harder / more confusing to check for actually openly licensed code, since then it's not clear what term to use. Already "free software" can be confused with "free as in free beer".
It doesn't really roll off the tongue, I get it, but it's the best and most widely used term for software whose source is available to view but not modify and/or redistribute.