Comment by jrowen

> An expanded analogy would not increase understanding I think.

Why not? Is there a better one? The relationship between open source and source available (and free software) is the core of what I'm trying to understand.

> You suggested a library and a completed end-user product should be considered differently I thought.

I suggested that later. I maybe should not have used library at that point. I'm not saying that they should fundamentally be considered differently. I'm just saying it might behoove the movement to be a little bit more welcoming, and guiding, of some of these gray area efforts.

Software licensing is fundamentally a social/political/legal "people" issue, not a mathematical/logical one. Clinging to a beautiful elegant mathematical rule that sticks it head in the sand w.r.t. the messy world of human behavior, while also claiming the moral high ground, is maybe what I feel is a bit of bad faith (or, more charitably, clashing ideologies that I feel could be united by finding a middle ground). I would also argue that there is somewhat more responsibility to show good faith on the side of the gatekeepers than the people being kept out.

> The title of the submitted article said it was okay source available is not open source.

When I said "huge drama" I was referring to the whole thing - the posts referenced by that article, the comments, the words that have been spilt on how many words have been spilt on this issue. The point of the article is, it's great, but do not call it open source. Because there is a stringent mathematical definition of open source, and even though there's a wider world of projects that might not fully identify with that but want to participate in the colloquial spirit of being "open," we want to be very clear that they are not a part of this and need to sit at their own "not-open" table.