Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> You can do all that assuming you have a license for your production users. It's not GNU-style Free Software, sure, but it still feels like Open Source to me.

I disagree. If you need a paid license in order to redistribute modified copies, that's really not how developers think of open source and it seems disingenuous to conflate the two meanings. It definitely does not "feel" open source.

Even Microsoft understood this difference, which is why back in the day (before current Microsoft practices) they used to have an initiative called "Shared Source" [0]. Notice how they avoided calling it "open source", since this would have contradicted reasonable expectations about the meaning of the term.

----

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source




Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: