Comment by zoogeny
2 years ago
A lot of the comments to this are angry and I can appreciate that. There is obviously some specific nuance to "open source" that individuals in this thread want to maintain and feel that the OSI has enshrined in stone as a definition that no one shall breach.
However, I strongly support the kind of license (in principle) that this software is released under. Source code is available for anyone to inspect, modify for their own use, contribute to, run locally for their own benefit. The main restriction is so clearly obvious: you can't create a commercial competitor. You can't take their code and with minimal effort or minor changes create a competing app and sell it to others.
This to me seems like a completely sane license. So common in fact that creative commons asks two basic questions when they recommend a license: "Allow adaptations of your work to be shared?" and "Allow commercial uses of your work?". In fact, they differentiate this difference with the moniker "Free cultural works" [1] (those that allow commercial use are termed "free").
I'd like to see the same nuance in software licenses. A difference between "open" and "free". That way, we can avoid this bickering in the comments where those who really want completely free software (free from all restrictions including those against commercial use) won't jump down the throats of those who want to open up their source while protecting themselves from competing commercial use.
1. https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/fr...
This isn’t bickering. These definitions have existed for literal decades. There are multiple models for making source code available, and people can choose what license they want. But this isn’t open source. This is source available, free (as in beer, kinda) license.
You don’t have to pay, and you can see the source code. But, in my quick reading, I don’t think you can make modifications, distribute modifications, distribute unmodified versions, and there is a restriction on how you use the software (non-commercial only).
This is the same type of license Microsoft gave certain large (TLA) customers for Windows, IIRC. I believe they called it “shared source,” as in they shared a copy of the source with you, but you couldn’t use the source for more than review. No one would claim that was open source.
There are differences between free, open, and available. This is only the later. No one cares about what license something is available through. Authors get to do whatever they want. People only care when you try to claim one thing, but it is really something else. In this case, the company is trying to use the term “open source” as a selling point of their software, when it isn’t. This license doesn’t even match the definitions they use on their own site!
I’m happy the authors want to make it possible to audit their software. That’s a laudable goal. If they want to restrict usage of the source code to non-commercial use, that’s fine and up to them. Just don’t call it “open source”.
Just because something is free doesn’t make it open. And just because something is open doesn’t make it free (as in freedom or beer). Similarly, just because something auditable and available, doesn’t make it free or open.
The fact that the authors don’t know the difference (or are potentially misrepresenting the difference) will only make the community mad - especially the part of the community that would care about seeing the source code in the first place. If they instead were marketing the project as “source available” for auditing or non-commercial use, this wouldn’t have been an issue.
Your first points: "can’t make modifications, distribute modifications, distribute unmodified versions" appears to contradict the language from their license file:
> Any Association grants you (“Licensee”) a license to use, modify, and redistribute the Software, but only (a) for Non-Commercial Use, or (b) for Commercial Use in Allowed Networks.
> These terms do not allow Licensee to sublicense or transfer any of Licensee’s rights to anyone else.
IANAL, but I thought transferring rights was required to redistribute a work. If someone downloads this software from me, I can’t give them a right to use that software. Only the original authors can do that. And even if an earlier clause says that I can redistribute, this cause suggests that I can’t.
As it is, this is a software license that I wouldn’t touch.
But even if I am wrong on this point, the rest of my argument stands. With the restrictions on use, this is neither an open nor free (as in freedom) license.
(Side note: this is why new authors shouldn’t roll their own licenses. Ambiguity is not what you want to see in a license agreement.)
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I think the issue is that they say "open source!" with no further qualification. That's misleading and disingenuous.
I support the use of alternative business models like source available, Business Source License etc. That's fine. But you should accurately describe your licensing. They should have said "source available".
>The main restriction is so clearly obvious: you can't create a commercial competitor.
I don't see it. Commercial use there is defined as "where the Software facilitates any transaction of economic value other than on Allowed Networks". As I understand, it means financial application.