Open-Source Is Just That
122 comments
·April 7, 2025olalonde
CaptainFever
I agree. Similarly, if the license doesn't allow modification and redistribution, it does not grant the user fundamental freedoms, and is not free software, so it cannot possibly be free-and-open-source.
sceptic123
Can we not consider free as in beer here? I think if we can make a distinction between modification and redistribution then open source can be less proscriptive. If the source is open to view, and you are able to change that code in any way, just not redistribute your modifications, what would you call that?
pseudalopex
> Can we not consider free as in beer here?
The rest of your comment didn't. How did you want to consider it?
> I think if we can make a distinction between modification and redistribution then open source can be less proscriptive.
I think new definitions should have new terms.
> If the source is open to view, and you are able to change that code in any way, just not redistribute your modifications, what would you call that?
Source available.
card_zero
The words put, make, set, and run have literally hundreds of senses. Open source is very tightly defined with only three or four.
eastbound
Funny thing, “free and open-source” can be paid. You can charge all your customers, it’s just that they are free to redistribute. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DoesTheGPLAllow...
umanwizard
Which raises the fascinating question of whether it’s legal to sell forks of GPL software under a separate rider agreement that your customers won’t distribute it. I.e. you license it to them under the GPL (which lets them redistribute it), but sign a separate agreement with them in which they promise not to exercise that right.
I think that’s probably illegal, but I have definitely heard of companies doing it.
pabs3
I think it would depend on the agreement and what you would lose when exercising your GPL rights.
For example, with RedHat your subscription for security updates/etc can be terminated.
eastbound
The GPL’s FAQ says no, you can’t give GPL software with an additional NDA. But as usual with licenses: I suppose it was never tested in court.
enriquto
if it's your software you can simply sell them a proprietary license separately
jchw
> When software is open-source, it is open-source, not necessarily free and open-source (FOSS), and even if it is FOSS, it might still have a restrictive licence.
I strongly dislike this obviously controversial bit being snuck into an otherwise reasonable argument. The term FOSS is meant to unify "free software" and "open source software" and there is absolutely no reason to accept GNU's definition of "free software" and not OSI's arguably more successful definition of "open source" software. After all, "free" software, to this day, just sounds like freeware to the layperson, and meanwhile, there is other industry jargon you can use for when the source code is available but the copyright license doesn't meet these criteria.
wolvesechoes
> and there is absolutely no reason to accept GNU's definition of "free software" and not OSI's arguably more successful definition of "open source" software
The reason was to not dilute the politcal agenda of the original movement, and this dilution is exactly why "open-source" was created.
NoTeslaThrow
> The term FOSS is meant to unify "free software" and "open source software"
I have always assumed it to mean the intersection of the two contexts. As in, necessarily copyleft.
A layperson doesn't know what copyleft is anyway; they hardly seem worth tailoring communicating for if you're not also going to explain the difference the terms encapsulate and why people might care. Just use "open source" at that point.
As far as I'm concerned the OSI doesn't have any weight and there's little reason to think we share values sufficiently for me to start caring. Do I look like a corporation trying to slap some sense of community on a product?
jchw
> I have always assumed it to mean the intersection of the two contexts. As in, necessarily copyleft.
The definitions are very, very similar. Neither imply copyleft; almost all open source licenses are free software licenses and vice versa.
> As far as I'm concerned the OSI doesn't have any weight and there's little reason to think we share values sufficiently for me to start caring. Do I look like a corporation trying to slap some sense of community on a product?
All I'm saying is that if we accept "free" as implying the GNU free software definition, then we should accept "open source" as implying the OSI definition. There is no logical reason for why GNU's jargon is somehow better than OSI's.
NoTeslaThrow
> Neither imply copyleft
The "free software" part necessarily implies copyleft.
> There is no logical reason for why GNU's jargon is somehow better than OSI's.
There's no logical reason to conflate them, either. I'm free to mock the term as I see fit.
palata
> I have always assumed it to mean the intersection of the two contexts. As in, necessarily copyleft.
It's the union.
Actually it's harder than that: it's the union, but I challenge you to find a license that is open source and not free, or that is free and not open source :-).
I think there is a difference in philosophy between two parts of the movement, but in practice, what we call "open source software" is the same as "free software" (in terms of licences).
bentley
“Free software” does not imply copyleft, not even to the FSF. The MIT license is a free software license even by their definition.
kazinator
There is no Open Source software that is not free, if we are using the OSI definition of Open Source. FOSS just adds a certain emphasis for reasons of the historic tension between the FSF/GNU "free software" advocates and the "open source" advocates. FOSS doesn't mean that OSS is not free without the F.
There are a few twits out there who believe (or at least troll) that proprietary software whose source code is available is "open source". So FOSS provides the minor and largely unnecessary benefit of making it clear that it's not that.
nine_k
No, "Open Source" is not "just that". This word combination has a specific meaning, not equal to a simple sum of these words. Similarly, "sparkling water", "hot dog", or "heavy metal" have meanings distinct form the simple sum of the meanings of constituent words.
The notion of "Open Source" has an agreed-upon definition, understood widely within the community of software development practice: https://opensource.org/osd
By the same token, "Free Software" has a specific, narrow meaning: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
What would you tell a person who would peddle you deep-frozen apple juice as "hard cider", because it's technically cider, and is undeniably hard?
(While at it: I must praise the choice of the font on the page, super clean and legible. It's Lexend, freely available from Google Fonts.)
CrimsonRain
Who made opensource.org the king?
hollerith
The definition at https://opensource.org/osd has existed with only very minor changes since 1999.
If you want a different definition, all you have to do is invent a new term. The term "open source" was invented by the people who made the definition at the URL above. (It had existing uses, but the people who made the definition above were the first to apply the term to software or software licenses.)
CrimsonRain
Is that why they lost the copyright case?
A bunch of for-profit companies proped OSI up to exclude "open source" projects that are not free to use for businesses so they can profit more from OSS community and you eat it up.
HDThoreaun
The words open and source have been around far longer than that
evanelias
They absolutely were NOT the first to apply the term to software in general. See https://dieter.plaetinck.be/posts/open-source-undefined-part... for many proven uses of "open source" being used to describe source-available software prior to the OSI's existence.
As for being the first to apply the term to software licenses, yes you're correct there. But that's the inherent source of this endless confusion: they took an existing term which didn't relate to licenses, and redefined it to be entirely about licenses.
It's quite ironic to say "If you want a different definition, all you have to do is invent a new term" since that's literally what the OSI failed to do!
Edit to add: I would appreciate it if downvoters would cite what specific part of the linked article you disagree with, considering that it has numerous instances of irrefutable proof of "open source" being used to describe software prior to 1998, including by famous folks like Bill Joy.
xorcist
They made up the term specifically from looking at word combinations that were not in common use and could reasonably be trademarked for this specific purpose. One of the problems with the at the time popular term Free Software was that it could not be trademarked. They did a thorough job but in the end it wasn't enough.
palata
It's called a consensus.
ruicraveiro
Playing devil's advocate, I claim that the consensus is that open source just means public code, not free licenses. Prove me wrong.
ruicraveiro
So what would you call projects with restrictive licenses but with their source code made public?
hollerith
Since I started on the internet in 1991, people have been calling that source-code-available software.
schoen
The other points make sense to me, but I have to disagree with this one.
> It does not mean it is free and open-source (FOSS).
When the campaign to describe software as "open source" kicked off in 1998, it consciously choose the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) as the basis for the Open Source Definition (OSD), so that "open source" would refer to the same thing as "free software".
Clearly the connotations of the two terms have diverged quite a lot, but their denotations weren't meant to.
globular-toast
I don't think the author knows what Free Software is, sadly.
ekianjo
That's exactly what happens when you muddy the waters by using an ambiguous term like "open source". People not understanding the original motive.
mvdtnz
1998 was 27 years ago. Definitions change.
umanwizard
Definitions do change, but this one hasn’t. 99% of people I see using the term “open source” in the present day are using it to mean software that you can freely modify and redistribute. For proprietary software with publicly readable source code, the term “source available” is used instead.
mvdtnz
Where are you getting that 99% from?
bmacho
[flagged]
AceJohnny2
what does "Free" mean? What do you think the author meant in this context?
The problem is that "Free" means two things in English, which is why some like to use the French/Spanish "Libre" instead, to separate the "free-as-in-speech" from "free-as-in-beer".
deaddodo
I haven't seen a person in this thread use free in the sense of payment yet, it seems pretty disambiguous that everyone is referring to free in the sense of liberty.
This includes the point the person you are responding to is trying to make, in which case they are noting that open source and source available are not the same things. Their point seems to be that open source, by the very definition to most who matter/care about the concept, implies the "free/libre/disentangled" portion. Whether that means derivative continuation (GPL and its kin) or not (MIT, BSD, etc).
This is why the phrase "source available" exists.
robinhouston
This is a complaint as old as the internet, which probably bears repeating from time to time.
One part I think is unnecessarily controversial:
> It does not mean it is free and open-source (FOSS).
This is another old argument that it's pointless to re-litigate, but one should at least note that this way of using the term ‘Open Source’ contradicts the OSI definition and risks causing avoidable misunderstandings.
greyface-
Trademarks are the legal framework we use to protect phrases like this. In 1999, OSI applied for, and was denied, a trademark on the phrase "Open Source".[1] Perhaps there is a moral argument to be made to this effect, but there is not a legal one.
[1]: https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p...
Brian_K_White
Ridiculous.
The entire dictionary is nothing but consensus on terms with no trademarks (and from which government?) anywhere.
OSI merely presents a definition as a service, for others to have something already thought-out to refer to rather than have to write a 10 page definition every time someone wants to refer to the concept.
It is well established by now, and the only people trying to argue about it are simply uneducated or have some deliberate agenda where they somehow benefit from artificially clouding an issue that has already gone through a process of being hashed out and recorded long ago. There is no reason to give them any air.
robinhouston
I'm not trying to make either a moral or a legal argument, only to warn against using the term in a way that is liable to cause confusion or needless antagonism.
umanwizard
> Perhaps there is a moral argument to be made to this effect, but there is not a legal one
Nobody was even talking about law until you chimed in.
Believe it or not words can mean things in English independent of whether there is a court case establishing that meaning.
bruce511
>> The code being available in and of itself does not give you a right to take it, modify it, or redistribute it.
True, in the sense that some (not Open Source) things are distributed as source code. (I do so myself.)
But the title of the article references Open Source. Capital O, capital S. If something ships under an Open Source (OSS not necessarily FOSS) then you fo have those rights.
The bulk of the article is around support though, and I completely agree with the sentiments there.
Aeolun
I agree with everything except the concept of software whose source has been released not being free.
If you put it, openly available, on the internet, that’s tantamount to giving it away for free, regardless of what bizarre license you release it under.
Relying on restrictions in law is fundamentally a nasty proposition.
zelphirkalt
Yet that law is, what normal people are held accountable to, whether it is nasty to rely on it or not. Of course, if you happen to be a tech giant and have almost limitless financial means, you can do whatever you want.
cocoto
As seen in the comments here, better to use a term like “source available”. It’s also more clear because the word “open” is way too abstract.
palata
I understand the complaint about entitled users: because it is open source does not mean that there is a community, support, reviews or anything. Open source just says something about the kind of licence and that's it.
This said, the author doesn't seem to have a good understanding of the definition of "open source" in the context of software. It is about the licence, not about the fact that one can read the source. It's a common mistake, but it's a mistake nonetheless.
To people who would say "well, if I want to understand "open source" as "source that is open", sure: you could also consider that a "hot dog" is a kind of dog. But don't be surprised when people tell you that they eat dogs ;-).
boyter
Ignoring the open-source vs free software discussions that are bound to come about from this well said. Large companies exploiting developers and abuse towards the maintainers is probably my biggest bugbear when it comes to this.
In fact I have a similar post https://boyter.org/posts/the-three-f-s-of-open-source/ which I redirect people towards if they become aggressive towards me when I am trying to help them. Thankfully I have only had to use it a handful of times.
YetAnotherNick
I think that the examples are not something most users fight with maintainers about.
- Does open source mean that the maintainers are free to ignore single line security fixes PR and refuse to handover it to well trusted and willing contributors.
- Does open source mean that maintainers could plant crypto miner or malware in the project or sell to someone who might do that?
- Does open source mean that companies could change the license and keep the product name same or remove a core functionality and migrate it to paid version?
I have seen multiple instances of all of these.
bruce511
>>- Does open source mean that the maintainers are free to ignore single line security fixes PR
Yes.
>> Does open source mean that maintainers could plant crypto miner or malware in the project or sell to someone who might do that?
Yes
>> Does open source mean that companies could change the license and keep the product name same or remove a core functionality and migrate it to paid version?
Yes
None of the things you mentioned are restricted (or required) by the license.
You may not agree with these points, or even consider them ethical, but OSS licenses allow for any of the above.
YetAnotherNick
I know license allows it in the same way it allows users to harass burned out maintainers. Both are bad and we should have some ethical guidelines.
A popular open source has lot of community contributions like blog post, answers in stack overflow, issue reporting, PRs etc. And if the maintainer changes the behaviour abruptly with no way for community to fix it, even if they are ready to pay for the development cost like terraform seems like abusing the open source ethos for their advantage.
bruce511
OSS is a license. Ethics are not legal, so don't form part of a license.
You are of course free to determine your own ethical standard and the use, or don't use, companies that apply that standard.
>> abusing the open source
You say "abusing" - they would say "using".
yjftsjthsd-h
Tiny caveat: With a viral license and the absence of a CLA or such, a company might not be able to meaningfully change the license. (AIUI; IANAL)
bruce511
Yes, if the copyright is held by multiple contributors then they would all need to agree before changing the license.
sameerds
I am confused. Has the author (and most of the comments below) not heard of the "Open Source Definition", or is it not considered relevant anymore?
> When software is open-source, it is open-source, not necessarily free and open-source (FOSS), and even if it is FOSS, it might still have a restrictive licence. 2 The code being available in and of itself does not give you a right to take it, modify it, or redistribute it.
Hmmm, if the license doesn't allow modification and redistribution, then it's not open source — it's "source-available." Open source, by definition, includes those rights. Just having access to the code isn't enough.