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You can publish your code open source, charge for it and still forbid people to sell it or even redistribute the source.

Not really. It depends on the exact licence but just about every 'open source' licence, and the Open Source Definition from the OSI and the Free Software Defintion from the FSF will requite that the licence lets the people who get the software to be allowed to redistribute it.

Just look at the link you provided for 'open source definition': "Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria:", and №1 being: "The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale."




The OSI was founded in 1998, but companies such as SAP provided their ERP systems with full readable source code much earlier than that, and it was called "open source" (as opposed to "closed source" which was more common with COTS).

However, it is explicitly forbidden in the licence to re-sell it or re-distribute it.

The term pre-dates the organisation's re-definition of it for their own purposes.


Yes, and "gay" used to mean a different thing. Nowadays the only widespread definition of Open Source is the one defined by the OSI. Using it to mean something else is deceptive.


I disagree. Is SAP deceptive just because one popular organization prefers another definition of open source? The OSI did not invent the term "open source". The term "open source" itself should not imply a specific license.


Is SAP deceptive just because one popular organization prefers another definition of open source?

It's not because the OSI prefers, it's because it's the mainstream, generally accepted current definition of the word. I mean, if I sold you a "broascasting system", would you accept something that casts seeds out?

The term "open source" itself should not imply a specific license

It doesn't. It implies a set of conditions they have to meet. BSD, MIT, GPL, Apache, WTFPL, are all different Open Source licenses.


Actually, Eric S Raymond, one of the founders of OSI, was also one of the people credited with coining the term "open source" at a meeting discussing Netscape releasing source code.


You may consider it deceptive, but it was and remains a common business practice for at least one very large software company. I just thought I'd point that it is possible to publish your code open source (not Open Source) and write your own licence conditions, and it happens every day, not just in the past.


Languages evolve, and words change their meaning over time.


Sure, but they also have different meanings in different contexts, and you need to be aware of them. I can still hold a tea party for my young daughter, right? Or has that phrase been taken for ever?


There's a difference between a word gaining a second meaning, and one meaning effectively replacing the other completely.

icebraining mentioned "gay". Today, who in their right mind would call a joyful person gay? That's what the term originally meant, but has since has been completely replaced with meaning "homosexual".

The term "Open Source" is the same. It may have meant something different some one and a half decades back. That meaning, however, has completely fallen out of use. Just as "gay" meaning "joyful" has. It's deceptive to use it that way.


"That meaning, however, has completely fallen out of use."

I'm not convinced of that - in fact, I think that is a little naive.

I don't believe that the OSI definition is completely accepted by the uneducated population at large, and don't believe that the term "open source" is not used by various software companies in ways that mislead and obfuscate the OSI meaning.

I'll quote Mr Stallman:

"However, the obvious meaning for the expression “open source software”—and the one most people seem to think it means—is “You can look at the source code.” That criterion is much weaker than the free software definition, much weaker also than the official definition of open source. It includes many programs that are neither free nor open source."

"The term “open source” has been further stretched by its application to other activities, such as government, education, and science, where there is no such thing as source code, and where criteria for software licensing are simply not pertinent. The only thing these activities have in common is that they somehow invite people to participate. They stretch the term so far that it only means “participatory”."

I don't accept that the other meanings have completely fallen out of use.

Edit: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h...




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