Comment by JimDabell
7 hours ago
> I'm saying that the claims made by the OP are true, and there's nothing anyone can possibly say about the bigger movement that can contradict those claims, because the movement, and what it is, and what it's like, are all not relevant.
Which claims? “Open Source Does Not Imply Open Community” is what I am responding to and I think it’s very obvious how the intent and social norms of the Open Source movement are relevant to that.
> I thought the question under discussion was "Does publishing open source obligate someone to form or engage with a community?
There is a difference between merely implying something and obligations. From my very first comment:
> Opening the code is a good thing and there’s no obligation for you to do anything more. But it isn’t doing what open source was designed to do; it’s ignoring a key part of it.
I am not saying that you are obliged to engage with the community, I’m saying that there’s a cultural norm to do so – so yes, open source does imply community. I then followed up by showing that this goal has been embedded in the Open Source movement from the very beginning.
> the definition of open source
You keep using this phrase. The OSD is a set of criteria used to define which licenses qualify as open source. The OSD is not a definition for the Open Source movement. You can keep referring to it as “the definition of open source”, but it’s not the definition in the context of this discussion. It has a narrower scope than this discussion, defining one specific aspect of the movement.
> Either you agree with the statement, in which case I think it makes it harder to argue against my bigger point, or you don't agree, and I tried to give you the opportunity to elaborate.
I wasn’t talking about the OSD at all, so rephrasing what I am saying in terms of the OSD is nonsensical. It doesn’t matter whether I agree or disagree – it’s not something I said and it’s not relevant to the point I was making.
> what point exactly were you making by bringing it up?
Again, you are using “Open Source” and “OSD” as synonyms when I am continually pointing out that the OSD defines only the license aspect of the Open Source movement and I am talking about the movement as a whole.
You took a quote that was very clearly ascribing the motivations and character of the Open Source movement and rephrased it to be about the OSD. It wasn’t about the OSD, it was about the movement.
I’ll quote it again:
> 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.
Community participation has always been a cultural norm of the Open Source movement. From day one. The fact that they didn’t write it down in the OSD, which is a set of criteria for software licenses does not change that. So when somebody says that “Open Source Does Not Imply Open Community”, it’s fair to say that yes it does. Note that this is not the same thing as saying that somebody is obliged to accept community participation, and it is not anything that software licenses deal with. It’s about social norms.
EDIT: Okay fine, I see it your way. Open source may often imply open community. I'll stop trying to argue that it doesn't. Instead, I posit that open source should not imply open community, even if that's what the originators of the movement intended.
I'm leaving my first draft of this comment below because there's a couple of points I just can't help but be a pedant over.
> Opening the code is a good thing and there’s no obligation for you to do anything more. But it isn’t doing what open source was designed to do; it’s ignoring a key part of it.
Yes, we don't agree on whether it's a "key part." That doesn't mean I misunderstood you, it means I think you're wrong.
> I’m saying that there’s a cultural norm to do so – so yes, open source does imply community.
No, it doesn't. Open Source doesn't imply anything except that the software is released under a license consistent with the OSD, and the cultural norms have no bearing on that.
Just because you expect it doesn't mean it's implied. If I release software today and call it "open source," but don't provide any means to send me outside contributions, can anyone reasonably claim that my software isn't open source? No. Therefore, community is not implied.
> The OSD is not a definition for the Open Source movement.
If the OP were making claims about what the open source movement is or isn't, then this would be pertinent. I don't think they're saying that though, I think they're saying that open source does not imply open community.
> It doesn’t matter whether I agree or disagree – it’s not something I said and it’s not relevant to the point I was making.
And I say it doesn't matter what you said, because when I said
> if you don't think the statement is true
I was addressing whether the statement was true of false, not whether it's the main point you were trying to make. If it's true, then it supports my argument, regardless of whether it happened to be the claim you were making. It's like...
> Squares and circles are the same.
> A square has four sides, and circles have no sides. Therefore, circles and squares are exclusive.
> I never said anything about how many sides any shapes have.
You see how it doesn't matter whether it's the exact claim you made, it only matters whether it's true? The point of debate is for both parties to find out what's true.
> Community participation has always been a cultural norm of the Open Source movement.
I really don't see how that's so different and contradictory to
> the terms laid out in the OSD were motivated by hopes of cultivating a community.
> no obligation for you to do anything more.
I think if you agree with this sentence you agree with OP, so I don't know why you need to clarify what's typical in the movement. OP's point still stands.
> open source should not imply open community, even if that's what the originators of the movement intended.
I'd take this a step further and say the intention of the originators of the movement is somewhat irrelevant, because that movement essentially retconned a bunch of pre-existing licenses and concepts.
Consider the MIT license, which is OSI-approved but substantially predates the "open source movement" (as do many other popular OSI-approved licenses). This license was created not to foster collaboration, but rather simply to avoid legal overhead for software that wasn't expected to have much financial value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#History
Nowadays, because this license meets the OSD and is OSI-approved, people like GP come across any MIT licensed project and inherently assume the developers are part of the "open source movement" and should follow its social contract. Frankly, that's just BS and we should call it out accordingly: license choice alone does not logically imply anything about following a social movement.
I suppose, but I like to call my software "open source," and it's a little hard to use their name but argue I'm not "one of them."
Granted I only use the term for lack of a better one, I actually prefer calling it Free Software when I'm around people who know the difference. The problem is that it's confusing for everyone else, since I do think it's fine to charge money for my "free software."
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