Remix.run Logo
saghm 5 days ago

My issue with "source available" as a term has always been that it basically sounds like a synonym to "open source". It's not clear to me why the place to draw the line for what level of restriction constitutes " would be between what's known as " source available" and "true" open source when the question of "can I read the source code for this or not" seems way more intuitive to me than "can I run a cloud-based software service for this without violating the terms of the license".

From what I can tell, the argument against including stuff that's called source available in the category of open source basically boils down to the OSI definition, but it doesn't seem reasonable to me for an organization to claim exclusive rights to a very generic-sounding term with an intuitive definition that clashes with how they want to define it. If there's a concern over the pollution of their brand, they should be trying to trademark it, and if there's not, the constant backlash against anyone using the term in a way that conflicts with their definition is pretty antisocial. I recognize that this battle is probably already lost, but I'm not sure I'll ever understand why as a community we seem to have been happy to police usage of an unintuitive definition through public pressure just to try to make a point that doesn't seem to have nearly as much consensus behind it as the expectation of uniformity would imply.

SamInTheShell 5 days ago | parent [-]

The history stems from the term “free” software not being very palatable for marketing. There are 4 tenants to free software. Bear is no longer free software.

saghm 5 days ago | parent [-]

All of those statements are reasonable, but they don't really change the point I'm making from what I can tell. Having trouble marketing "free software" doesn't justify anything about how an entirely separate term should be used.

SamInTheShell 5 days ago | parent [-]

I actually put this in the wrong thread. Disregard, I have no clue where the thread I meant to put that was.

saghm 5 days ago | parent [-]

Ah, okay, that makes sense. No worries!