this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
17 points (70.7% liked)
Open Source
30757 readers
711 users here now
All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!
Useful Links
- Open Source Initiative
- Free Software Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Software Freedom Conservancy
- It's FOSS
- Android FOSS Apps Megathread
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to the open source ideology
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
People often use the OSI's Open Source Definition when using the term "open source". One of its criteria says "The license must allow modifications and derived works" which this license does not allow.
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/8367/is-the-term-open-source-a-trademark has a discussion about this.
The short story is that the OSI failed to obtain a legal trademark in the US for the term "open source" (software), resulting in many opportunistic companies and individuals adopting the term popularized by the OSI (which was founded by Eric Raymond, Michael Tiemann and Bruce Perens).
There was controversy at the time due to it being a business-friendly spin on the ideological "free software", and I personally avoided using the term for many years as a result. Even without a trademark on the now generic term of Open Source, there is still value in the OSI brand and its stamp of approval on a license.
Those who want to be crystal clear, should probably always say OSI Approved Open Source License.
Now, I'm off to have a Nescafé Approved Coffee.
Which is one of the possible definitions. Mine is "you can see the code". Everything else falls into "free software".
That's nice. If your goal is to ever talk to people about open source software, that's going to create a lot of unnecessary confusion.
On top of that, accepting this bolsters companies to use this kind of a definition specifically to take advantage of the mental model that many people have connecting "open source" with OSI.
I guess that my definition of open source is not that uncommon, given that the terms "free software" and "libre software" exist and are rather well-established by this point.
The fact that there is overlap has no bearing on whether your definition is common.
@tux0r You are right that this mistaken definition is quite common. Smart person would try to correct the mistake, not defend it.
The term that is often used for that is "source available". Good example of other software in this category would be what, Unreal Engine?