No. "Source available" is not the same as "open source".

https://haacked.com/archive/2006/07/26/CodeAvailableVsOpenSo...

Oh well, if you say so!

The point is the adjective is commonly used imprecisely, despite a minority’s desire for it to be only used to describe a precise circumstance.

Genie, meet bottle.

Reality admits shades between Humpty Dumpty being right‡ and the Prescriptivist utopia where some ivory tower decides how language works.

‡ In "Through the Looking Glass" Humpty Dumpty asserts that "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less".

So it matters whether it's, say, one pundit who thinks "Source code available to certain parties under license" (e.g. Microsoft Windows has been handled this way in the past) counts as Open Source, or so common that you can find dozens of erroneous examples in every major software publication of the last five years.

People writing "free reign" when they mean "free rein" might be unsalvageable at this point, whereas people saying "backslash" when they mean a forward slash - probably we can still say those people are just wrong and need to sort it out.

> despite a minority’s desire for it to be only used to describe a precise circumstance.

The vast majority of the software industry uses "open source" correctly. A small minority of people and companies with a vested interest in sowing confusion to promote their "source available" business models misuses the term and creates FUD.

This wasn't really my experience... I went to school for CS, which involved using a bunch of open and closed source tools of different kinds. I wasn't aware of the distinctions between different kinds of open source, some of which fell within the OSI definition and some of which did not, I just knew that closed source stuff where I couldn't read the source was more annoying when things went wrong. I remember the moment much later when I realized that there was this whole (weird, to me) turf war over the definition. It still seems to me that the most straightforward definition of "open source" is just any software for which the source code is available (such that it is open, like a book).

This confusion/imprecision is only common among non-technical people. When a software project describes themselves as open source, in the overwhelming majority of cases they actually mean this https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

Can you back up the claim “overwhelming majority” with numbers or some studies?

> Software may be free but not open-source, and it may be open-source but not free.

Free and Open source software are basically mean to be synonyms, the latter being put forth by people to eliminate the ambiguity in English about the use of the word Free.

The "free" in "free software" means libre software, not gratis software.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

The fact that "free" in this context means libre is precisely why "free" and "open-source" are distinct concepts, and why you can have something that's "open-source but not free", and even "free but not open-source" (which in this case would basically mean you have a binary rather than source, but you're free to do whatever you want with it; you don't have the source so it's a lot harder to modify, but not impossible, and if you did modify it you'd be perfectly free to distribute that or relicense it or whatever else you want). I know the GNU defines "free" as requiring access to the source code, but that's just their opinion.

Tangential rant: "Copyleft" licenses aren't actually free. The GNU claims they are, that the restrictions that copyleft licenses add don't conflict with the "central freedoms" but simply protects them. But they do restrict my freedom. If a piece of source was truly free, I should be allowed to make significant modifications and sell the resulting software (without giving out the source). Copyleft expressly prohibits this. I get that the GNU is dreaming of a utopia in which all software is open source and "free" and nobody ever makes closed-source software or charges for software. But we don't live in that utopia, and we probably never will; the closest we'll come is when we hit a post-scarcity society and do away with money, so no more keeping software closed-source in order to sell it, but there will still be reasons to keep software closed-source other than wanting to charge money for it. But I digress. The point is, Copyleft licenses rather significantly restrict my freedom as a developer. I'm not trying to debate as to whether or not that restriction is a good thing, just taking issue with calling the result "freedom".

But Copyleft license significantly increases my freedom as a developer. I can develop software for customer#1, then use same software with customer#2, and so on. It's free.

It's like "those people told me that they are free, but I cannot sell them, so in reality they are non-free".

You could develop software for customer#1 and use the same software for customer#2 with a non-Copyleft license too. The question isn't "does the license enforce that the source must be distributed", it's "will the customer allow me to release the work as open source to begin with". About the only way Copyleft applies here is if you can make a strong case that the work customer#1 wants you to do necessitates (or would be much more expensive without) using a piece of copyleft-licensed source, and therefore the whole work must be covered under a copyleft license. But as a developer with a long work history I've never hit that case, or personally know anyone who has.

Really about the only scenario I can think of where I'd reasonably expect to hit this case is if I were tasked with building the software stack for some kind of appliance that would be greatly simplified by throwing Linux on there. And even then, the custom software running as a process on the box would presumably not have to be Copyleft-licensed, just any changes to the Kernel or any other bundled GPL'd software would have to be made available (if in fact there are any changes), and if GPLv3 is involved then the box would have to have some way for the user to replace the software (but the Linux Kernel is GPLv2 so that may not be an issue).

Barring that scenario, if your idea is "I'll develop something for customer#1 and slap the GPL license on it, then customer#1 has no choice but to release the source and I can reuse it for customer#2", unfortunately that's incorrect. Work done for hire is owned by the employer, not the employee, so you can't slap the GPL license on work you do for customer#1 unless customer#1 authorizes it. And in fact if the entire work is built in-house (rather than pulling in GPL'd libraries), then it doesn't even matter if you claim that it's GPL'd because the customer would be the sole copyright owner and would be able to relicense it. The only reason they couldn't relicense it is if it pulls in third-party GPL'd code or libraries, but if I were customer#1 and I hired a developer who pulled in GPL'd libraries without permission in order to try and force the entire work to be released as open source, you can bet I'd be firing that developer on the spot.

> You could develop software for customer#1 and use the same software for customer#2 with a non-Copyleft license too.

No, I cannot. Work done for hire is owned by the employer, not the employee. But, if employer chose GPL-covered software, e.g. Linux kernel, then he is forced to release code under GPL, so I can develop my code, e.g. kernel module for customer #1 and then use it with customer#2, because GPL protects my freedom. I don't need to reinvent the wheel, like with proprietary code.

If the employer chooses any open-source license whatsoever then you can use the code with the next customer (assuming the next customer is ok with the license). There's nothing special about Copyleft licenses there. Well, except for the fact that a Copyleft license is far more likely to have customer#2 say "no you can't use that, it's GPL, are you crazy?"

Depends on the relationship and contracts in place. If he said employer#1 and employer#2, yes, that's a problem.

"Customer" implies a much looser relationship, but you should still make sure appropriate contracts defining ownership are in place.

You're saying you're not free to change the licence of open source software, rather than not free to change the source code to it.

It does seem though that the majority of uses of "open source" describes Free Software. This is in line with the origins of the phrase as well - it was created to remove the confusion stemming from the adjective "free":

https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source...

>That is not the definition of open-source (or even "open source"), a common term for software the source code of which is available; it is the Open Source Definition, a copyrighted work published by The Open Source Initiative.

This is blatantly false. You will find it very difficult to find any respected authority whose definition of open source differs from the OSI's definition.

> Open-source is an adjective referring to the fact that that source code is available.

It's not. Let's not muddy the waters that this term was already introduced to further.

I agree. Regardless of what GP's feelings on the matter are, Open Source is a proper and well-defined term that was originally used as a way to sell open software business models to high-level execs.

I've never seen anyone advocate the term as open-but-not-free beyond those stating it to defend a point.

> Software may be free but not open-source, and it may be open-source but not free.

Other than version 1 of the Apple Public Source license, which is considered open source but not free (and also now entirely unused), what cases are you thinking of?

There are specific controversies; take GNU vs OSI. GNU elaborates the differences on their site: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.en..... I couldn't find OSI's take on their website, other than a general lack of reference to GNU/FSF's idea of Free Software.

Then there are disagreements on specific licenses. OSI approves licenses GNU does not classify as Free, and GNU classifies licenses as Free that OSI does not approve.

Then there's GitHub, which publishes a site to help you "choose an open source license," which includes a license not approved by OSI (the Unlicense), and only makes a reference to OSI as an "additional resource". Likewise, GitHub lists FSF as an "additional resource," while consistently using the term open source, not free, and not free and open.

Digital Ocean explains the difference between free and open-source software: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/Free-vs-Ope....

Eliah Kagan answers the question on AskUbuntu with some explanation of the history and plenty of links: https://askubuntu.com/questions/78958/is-there-a-difference-....

In the past I've run into projects where the source was on GitHub where you could compile yourself, but binaries needed to be purchased. Lemme see if I can find it

There's plenty of non-free code on github, but it's still not open source and nobody seriously refers to it as such.

That is still free software and open source.

Epic's Unreal Engine is another example

Could you please elaborate?

It's shared source, behind a register wall. You can clone the git tree and privately hack to your heart's content, but commercial usage and sharing of the source are under (fairly reasonable) particular rules.

That's incorrect. They invented the term. Contrary to the public belief, the term open source did not exist before open source definition.

They did not. Simon Phipps, President of OSI, not only admits as much but provides a link in his blog that proves the point: https://opensource.org/blog/18418.