Comment by hamdingers

1 day ago

Is rsync going closed source? If not, how is that the same thing?

No. The name only means it’s made by the OpenBSD team, nothing more. If they made their own Python port, it’d be called OpenPython, even though the original is FOSS.

  • So is OpenSUSE made by the BSD team? OpenOffice? OpenShift? OpenCV? OpenAI?

    It is not reasonable to claim this prefix unambiguously refers to the OpenBSD team. I do not understand why so many in this thread are pretending this isn't a confusing choice.

    • Nobody ever claimed that “Open” is a prefix used unambiguously by only one group of people ever.

      In fact, your insistence that “Open” can only be used by projects that are replacing proprietary software is itself very odd.

      OpenBSD itself has had its name for thirty years, and is not named for being an “open source” implementation of a proprietary OS.

      3 replies →

> Is rsync going closed source? If not, how is that the same thing?

Not closed source, but with rsync 3.0 it changed its license to GPL3, which a lot of folks don't like: BSD/MIT licenses have zero limitations on use and distribution, GPL2 (rsync 1.x, 2.x) forces one to release code, GPL3 (rsync ≥3.x) adds further restrictions.

Some folks want to distribute code with as few restrictions as possible. Other folks have a great good/goal in mind (e.g., 'all software is open source') and so add 'local restrictions' to hopefully achieve greater non-restrictions.