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yieldcrvyesterday at 6:56 PM2 repliesview on HN

Open source never meant free to begin with and was never software specific, that’s a colloquialism and I’d love to say “language evolves” in favor of the software community’s use but open source is used in other still similar contexts, specifically legal and public policy ones

FOSS specifically means/meant free and open source software, the free and software words are there for a reason

so we don’t need another distinction like “source available” that people need to understand to convey an already shared concept

yes, companies abuse their community’s interest in something by blending open source legal term as a marketing term


Replies

jasonjmcgheeyesterday at 7:10 PM

Whether or not something is "free" is a separate matter and subject to how the software is licensed. If there is no license it is, by definition "source available", not open source. "source available" is not some new distinction I'm making up.

See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46175760

viraptoryesterday at 8:40 PM

This is not a space for "language evolves". Open source has very specific definitions and the distinctions there matter for legal purposes https://opensource.org/licenses

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