Comment by engeljohnb
6 hours ago
Why is everyone in this thread ignoring the fact that the world already had this debate 30 years ago, so the OSI published a document clearly specifying what is and isn't Open Source?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition
It doesn't say anything about collaborative development.
I’m well aware of the OSD, but we are talking about social norms, not distribution terms.
Direct from the OSI:
> The conferees believed the pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape to release their code illustrated a valuable way to engage with potential software users and developers, and convince them to create and improve source code by participating in an engaged community. The conferees also believed that it would be useful to have a single label that identified this approach and distinguished it from the philosophically- and politically-focused label “free software.” Brainstorming for this new label eventually converged on the term “open source”, originally suggested by Christine Peterson.
— https://opensource.org/about/history-of-the-open-source-init...
“Participating in an engaged community” has been an intrinsic part of Open Source from the beginning.
I talked to Simon Phipps about this back in the mid-2000s, so I understand where you're coming from, even if I disagree.
I'm curious whether you classify chromium, AOSP, or sqlite as open source.
> I'm curious whether you classify chromium, AOSP, or sqlite as open source.
They are open source software, but they aren’t following the social norms of the open source movement. They are within their rights to develop as they see fit and label their software as open source software, but it’s also reasonable for people to have different expectations and to be surprised when these projects do not collaborate with the public.
It's so fundamental they didn't include it in the definition?
>Open source is not merely a license choice.
Yes it is. The OSD only deals with licenses, therefore whether a software has a "community" has no bearing on whether it's open source.
You're claiming the terms laid out in the OSD were motivated by hopes of cultivating a community, but the reasons behind the document are immaterial to this discussion. It only matters how "open source" is defined, and it's plainly not defined by the presence of any community.
> You're claiming the terms laid out in the OSD were motivated by hopes of cultivating a community
I didn’t say that. I didn’t bring up the OSD at all. In fact I was explicitly talking about a broader concept than simply license terms from my very first sentence. You were the one that started talking about the OSD.
> It only matters how "open source" is defined, and it's plainly not defined by the presence of any community.
The OSD defines criteria by which software licenses can be considered open source. It doesn’t define the movement as a whole.
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Because brain rotted millennials and zoomers cannot comprehend something not involving identity/grievance politics.