This is not pedantry, this is adhering to the actual definition of open source that is generally accepted in our community:

https://opensource.org/osd

> Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code

No good deed goes unpunished around here.

I think it's more that bullshit is called when bullshit is seen.

This is just so hyperbolic? It's code for a project you can explore and learn from. License is not permissive? It's a friggin rails app - just look at the model or mechanism you are interested in copying, figure out the approach taken, and recreate that approach. Why is everyone in here with pitchforks?

It's not hyperbolic. We're in a profession that elevates each other via open source. Saying something that is open source when it's not is no different than snake oil salesmen selling whiskey elixirs in the 1800s as cure alls.

They are lying and need to be called out.

Hard disagree. In the real world, the source of this app is open and therefore it is open source. You guys are behaving like extremists.

Would you prefer nothing at all? Sounds like in this case everyone here is looking past the golden egg in front of you - a successful rails app you can explore and play with - and focusing entirely on the wrong thing.

You're acting as if there aren't already tens of thousands of actual open source projects that exist just fine, some even make enough money to support continued development.

Why are you acting like the alternative is to burn down the system, you realize that there are plenty of people, organizations, and businesses that make actual open source software right? Like today even.

it's not open source - this is clearly "source available." these are terms of art.

just because you can read the English literally and say "the source is open" doesn't mean you've proven anything.

> Why is everyone in here with pitchforks?

Personally, I get pissed when companies misuse "open source" because without open source, I probably wouldn't be a developer in the first place. Just call things what they are, and leave existing terminology alone. Defending "open source" is defending the opportunity for others who were in the same situation as myself in the past.

Otherwise we'll quickly see more of what already started today, companies calling things "open source" in their marketing material but "proprietary" in their legal agreements, and no one will be better off if that's accepted.

> Personally, I get pissed when companies misuse "open source" because without open source

In this instance, where did Gumroad claim that its code was open source?

In this case it seems like the person who submitted it to HN just used an incorrect title, so not that bad in the grand scheme of things.

My reply was more directed towards the "Why is everyone in here with pitchforks?" in a general sense, as it wouldn't have been the first time I read about someone not understanding why people who do "open source" would like the existing meaning to remain.

Are you talking about philipjoubert's good deed of linking the Gumroad source and informing HN that it is now source available (albeit misrepresenting its license out of ignorance or otherwise)? Or are you talking about Gumroad's good deed of making its source publicly available?

The "OSD" is not the actual definition of open source. The OSI has no special rights to the term open source (despite their failed attempt to trademark the term). The OSI did not coin the term, their founders did not coin the term, the term was in use to refer to non-commercial software with publicly posted source prior to the OSIs existence.

Open source is like any english term, its meaning is defined by its use, not by some special interest group.

The complaint about using open source to refer to non-commercial licenses absolutely is pedantry. But more than that, it's not even objectively correct pedantry. It, like most language, is subjective.

(Which isn't to say that I think this license complies with the common use of the term open source as actually used, but I disagree with your argument for why that's the case).

All true, but language changes. And today, open source in this context is universally understood to mean software released under a license complying with the OSD.

Free software doesn't have to mean "software released under the GPL, MIT, BSD, or other FSF-approved license". And yet, in this context, it universally does.

No it is not.

Opensource.org doesn't get to redefine what words mean to the rest of us. They should have chosen words that weren't already being used with common meanings if they wanted to be the say in what those words meant.

Feel free to make an industry friendly version of the organization then, otherwise it seems like a lot of devs are extremely passionate about open source not just in usage but a movement that literally allowed them to carve out careers from it.

> The source is open. It can be seen, edited, run yourself.

I can also take and eat food from the supermarket without paying. I just have to pay later in multiples, get jailed, or both. Or not.