https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
Gitlab EE, which is how Gitlab makes its money, comes nowhere close to meeting that. It's pretty much straight up corporate dishonesty to pretend to be an open source company when you're following a proprietary software model to make money.
You're no more an "Open Source Company" than Apple or Microsoft, who also have some open source projects separate from their main revenue streams.
When I think about our company I do think of it as an open source company. 80% of the work and features are shipped in GitLab Community Edition and the majority of our users are using the open source edition.
If I google 'open source companies' the first hit is http://thevarguy.com/open-source-application-software-compan... I think a number of these have an open core business model.
The first ten blue links also point to http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-microsoft-is-turning-into-a... I don't think about Microsoft as being open source, but I think you can be a open source company and still ship propietary code.
If you want to know more about how try to balance the open source code with the need for a business model and our promises please see https://about.gitlab.com/about/#stewardship
When I think about our company I do think of it as an open source company.
It confirms that some of us might share the same feeling.
We also try to open up as much as we can, including our company handbook https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/
Conversely, for Gitlab to be as closed as Microsoft, their entire product would be closed, except for the source code they use to color labels in issues, or perhaps they'd hand out the spec to their flavor of Markdown.
Here is how open source is officially defined: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
Edit:
I did not downvote you. Your point is valid because it reflects a common view in the community. Asking questions should not be punished. Please consider this before downvoting the comment above.
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/blob/master/LICENSE "have a valid GitLab Enterprise Edition subscription for the correct number of user seats"
> It's pretty much straight up corporate dishonesty
That's uncharitable and on the wrong side of the HN guideline against name-calling. Please err on the other side instead. In addition to making the community more civil, it will make your arguments stronger; as for example your last sentence was the stronger argument here.
A more charitable comment would also not have spoken of "the" definition of open-source, a notoriously protean term.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060924132022/http://www.openso...
'Free software' was considered to be too scary for businesses and the rest is history. So, in other words, yes they have a say in this. The made the label with the associated definition.
Languages evolve and while opensource.org may have originated the term, common use dictates that the definition of "open source" isn't as strict as the original definition.
I don't disagree, but it's also up to the tech community to keep terms clean/accurate. Even if you don't follow the OSI definition, I think 'open source' clearly points to a set of licenses for most in the developer community.
When the term became popular, lot of companies tried to piggyback on the success of the name, trying to dilute it.
The latest Unreal for instance. It's not closed source, because you can in fact see the source, and it wouldnt be fair to compare it to other engines/games that are just a pure black box. But yet, the licensing is restrictive. So its not truly "open source" but Ive heard some people call it open source meaning "not closed" when in reality it is somewhere in between - "source available".
In those cases, the definition is not really as important as people seem to make it out to be. I'm speaking casually and colloquially here.
And I would say that Gitlab CE is open source. And consequently, Gitlab EE is MOSTLY open source. From my understanding, its essentially gitlab CE with some closed source plugins. I dont really care where they make their money. I interact with Gitlab CE primarily, and it is the core product. Calling them an open source company is not like calling Microsoft an open source company "because microsoft has some random open source products".
My entire point being that getting bent out of shape over minor semantics is weird. Not 100% of gitlab is open source, and they make most of their money off that closed source bit, but I would venture to say that most of their users (by volume, not by revenue) deal with the open source part only.
Opensource.org isn't just some random website by a random dude. It was setup by (among others) the very same guy that invented the phrase "open source". It should rightfully be considered the canonical definition of open source.
In my experience there is also a group of people that simply don't care about exact definitions or legal implications. They have this overly simplistic view that having access to the source code is all there is to it to be "open source". That's probably the group of people you refer to when you say "the community at large". I have no idea how big group is, or whether it is big at all. But I do think they are wrong.
I've noticed that some (not all) of the people in this group use the term "open source" for marketing purposes. Sadly, it is a term that attracts uninformed eyeballs.