How Open is Open Source Really?

jg21 writes to tell us that several industry leaders have chimed in with a response to Nat Torkington's recent piece "Is 'Open Source' Now Completely Meaningless". In the original piece Torkington raised the question of whether the term "open source" had lost any meaning because of companies that use the label yet largly restrict user interaction. Sun's Simon Phpps chimed in by stating: "I see open source as a term relevant to the way communities function and I'd support the reunification of the terms 'Free' and 'open source' around the concept of Free software being developed in open source communities. On that basis it's not dead."

Comments

Open Source means you get the code, that's it

[El Cubano]

I see open source as a term relevant to the communities function ...

Except that you don't get to define what open source means. The Open Source Initiative has that luxury. IIRC, they went to great lengths to differentiate Open Source and Free Software as two distinct entities. Open Source means you get the code and nothing more. No guarantee that you can redistribute, no guarantee that the vendor pays attention to you. The list goes on. You can have closed source with an open process (I think the Java Community Process is a good example of this), open source with open process (Python and their Python Enhancement Proposals) and open source with a closed process (XFree86, the reason we have X.org today and the old gcc before it was replaced by egcs. Even free software doesn't guarantee the openness in the process that you might want, as the case with the old gcc clearly illustrates. If community is important to you, that should be part of your selection criteria, not something that you let surprise you after you have picked.

Re:Open Source means you get the code, that's it

[morgan_greywolf]

Except that you don't get to define what open source means. The Open Source Initiative has that luxury. IIRC, they went to great lengths to differentiate Open Source and Free Software as two distinct entities. Open Source means you get the code and nothing more. No guarantee that you can redistribute... You just contradicted yourself. You might want to go and read the Open Source Definition, which does state that if a license is to be OSI certified, it must allow modification and redistribution under the same license.

Re:Open Source means you get the code, that's it

[liliafan]

I used to work for a web development company that advertised themselves as "the opensource web company".

Their idea of how they were an opensource company was because they used php to develop code, and, because when a site was written they gave the client ownership of the code.

No matter how much we employees tried to explain that didn't make us an opensource company the powers that be refused to listen. It was made worse by the fact that the president of the company was invited to DC to testify on the benefits of opensource.

Our contracts even stated that code developed in our own time was the property of the company, and the company policy was that no code developed could be released to the opensource community at large.

It can be really frustrating to have such a loose term as 'opensource' where a company can choose to interpret it in such a way as to benefit them and no one else, or companies that simply fail to understand the concept.

Re:Open Source means you get the code, that's it

[CastrTroy]

This comes down to the question of just how open do you have to be. Some people say GPL isn't enough, because it restricts how you can redistribute the code, and only think that BSD like licenses are really open source. Seems to me like your employer was trying to do the right thing, but giving the source code to the people who bought the program, but didn't want to have the code available to everyone, just those who had paid for the product. It's just another level of open source. It may not be as open as GPL or BSD, but it's way more open than MS Windows, where you don't get any option to view or change the source at all. Even MS has stuff they tout as open source, called shared source, but that's about as least open as you get, while still getting to look at the code.

Amen!

[drinkypoo]

I'm utterly tired of people not involved with a movement trying to redefine it. Open Source has been around for a lot longer than Free Software. In fact, it used to be the norm in a lot of areas.

Re:Amen!

[digitalunity]

A perfect example of the dichotomy you describe would be real industry participators in the standards process versus Microsoft's vision of the standards process. Most companies form panels, or working groups to develop standards. As the standards and technologies change, a consensus is reached and a standard revision is created, approved, and published. This keeps the standard relevant while making it available to all industry participants.

For MS, this involves building a product, calling it a de facto standard and then trying to get it approved formally by a standards body. This is irregardless of the fact that MS allows basically *ZERO* industry participation in developing their 'standards' before they are submitted for approval.

Diff between OSS and FL/OSS

[tomstdenis]

Just because you can see the code doesn't mean you can contribute.

Not only that, but just because the code is open doesn't mean it's accessible [re: properly written/designed]. Shitty code, even though it's open, can disuade newcomers to develop.

For OSS or libre software to be truly effective it has to target key problems and stay on focus. It also has to be written/documented to encourage new developers to learn from it and add to it. I suspect on projects like the Kernel and GCC there are many "old farts" who lead most of the significant development. In 20-30 years who will replace them if nobody can learn from what they have done?

Tom

Extreme open source

[Weaselmancer]

In the original piece Torkington raised the question of whether the term "open source" had lost any meaning because of companies that use the label yet largly restrict user interaction.

Just because some people disagree with or don't understand the term "open source" doesn't mean it becomes worthless. All it means is that some people don't quite get it yet.

It's like the word "extreme", which marketing has over the last few years beaten to death. Extreme doesn't mean anything anymore to most people - the mind simply edits it out. But that doesn't mean that the word is suddenly broken. It still means what it means, it's just that we're desensitized to the word through repeated misuse.

It's much the same way with open source. When you repeatedly misuse the term, it loses meaning. A good example is everybody's favorite, Microsoft. They use the term as a negative. Then turn around and use it as a positive, albeit in a somewhat misunderstood way.

Don't be confused!

[SpaceLifeForm]

Open source != Free Software

GPL software is Free, as in libre.

Open source is not necessarily Free, as in libre.

reunification

[forsetti]

How about "free" + "open" = "frepen"? (FREH-pen)

Have you tried that new frepen software?

That's the best frepen software I've ever used!

That frepen software frepped my freppy frep, and now I'm frepping frepped!

Not much to say

[T.E.D.]

For those who don't wanna bother to RTFA, he starts off by complaining about a specific company claiming to use OSS when its software isn't downloadable, only to have to post this correction:

(update: Vyatta source is in git, though in my defense you can't find this out from their downloads page only the wiki. Their entire product is GPL, so they're as open source as they come. I apologize for misfiring)

This is in paragraph one of a 6 paragraph article. Not a good start.

There is one genuine arguing point, where someone named "Tim" tries to claim that certain software is cool because it embraces and extends Postgres to make it Oracle compatible. Its a silly claim though. If you ditch Oracle for someone else's proprietary Oracle look-alike, what exactly are you gaining? Certainly nothing an Open Source or Free Software advocate cares about.

Open Source != GPL

[moore.dustin]

Creating something in an open source community/environment does not necessarily mean it will be released under the GNU/GPL license. It sounds like the OP seems to think that all open source projects either should be, or are made with release under the GPL being the end result of the program. That is not how it works. Open source projects can and often do yield a marketable product for sale in one for or another. Now other groups start out with the intent of designing a program and releasing it under a GPL - these groups then adopt the open source model in order to gain support, insight, and contributions from interested parties.

Open Source = Development Model, not a release model/plan

GPL(free) and open source can be mutually exclusive.

No kidding!

[CasperIV]

It's just outside forces wanting to push an agenda... It just doesn't work as well in the computer industry due to an overall higher intelligence level then the political arena.

who invented open source?

[falconwolf]

Actually, SCO [slashdot.org] (back when it was called Caldera) invented Open Source back in 1996 [google.com]. Yes, that's before the OSI thing, though after the foundation of the FSF.

The Tech Model Railroad Club of MIT had open source software as early as the 1960s and early 1970s beating out SCO by a long shot. The first computer game, Spacewar, came out in 1962 as a result of many programmers' contributions in an open manner. They used to compeat to see who could come up with a nifty hack, something that was considered impossible, never thought of, or was able to shave a few lines out of a program. Those programmer were amoung the first computer hackers and followed the Hacker ethic.

Falcon

Re:Free Software, not "open source"

[upside]

You've got to be kidding. "Free software" is even more useless than "open source".

It's only the geek crowd, and specifically in the software context, that thinks of free as freedom. For most people "free" connotes free as in beer (zero cost), even in the software context. A little test to put yourself in Joe Average's shoes: imagine yourself outside a bookstore. A sign above a shelf in the window says "free books". Now, do you think "cool, freebies", or do you REALLY think "cool, books that I can copy, modify and sell"?

The simple truth is that people just have to learn about the nuances. You can't create a cover-all term and expect everyone to agree on the meaning and trust everyone not to abuse it.

Aspects such as cost, availability of source and restrictions on use and redistribution are not necessarily tied together at all. I can devise a libre-but-not-zero-cost license that allows people to modify and resell the software, but forbids them from giving it away for free. Or an "zero-cost-redistributable-modifiable-only-for-pri vate-use" license stipulating that the source may be viewed and modified for private use, but the modified versions may not be resold. Ad infinitum.