So, it is open source? Doesn't this fall under the adage of "free as in free speech, not as in free beer?"
Personally, I think using "open source" to mean "the source is open to the public" is as misguided as using "free software" to mean "the software is free of charge," but in practice there's a lot more ambiguity in the former, not the latter.
I would disagree. Both the terms "open source" and "free software" existed prior to the open-source software movement. Either way, you don't get to co-opt the plain English meaning just because you've invented your own jargon. That's not how language works.
That's precisely how language works: we co-opt words and change their meaning all the time; this happens all the time with software, engineering and physics. Open source has come to mean something in the software development world (and it arguably never meant "the source is open to the public but they must pay for its use", so it's not even an actual subversion). Some companies now might be trying to redefine the term, and it's up to us -- the programming community -- to stop them by rejecting this redefinition.
That some wish to draw a distinction from a term of art does not meant that all uses of that term must draw the same distinction or be considered a term of art. English, and indeed all natural languages, support words with multiple, often contradictory meanings. English, being defined by usage, does not care at all about any authority in language.
The words "free software" will essentially forever mean "software obtained without monetary cost" because that's what those words mean in plain English. That's the semantic meaning of combining that adjective with that noun. The fact that a second definition exists where "free software" is a compound word is mostly irrelevant. The fact that engineers have a specific meaning for "shear" doesn't mean I can't call my scissors "shears". That's why so many terms of art are invented whole-cloth and why acronyms as terms of art are so prevalent. It's precisely to avoid that contextual semantic collision that plain English doesn't give two shits about.
Well, "software" is a relatively new word, so I'm not sure about "forever" (is software a soft ware?). And within the short lifespan of this word, the term Free Software in the technically accepted jargon has been in use for a really long time (at least early 80s, apparently).
Yes, non-technical people won't understand what "free software", "open source", or "source" means for that matter. They don't understand what a license means in terms of software either. They don't know or care about hacker culture, or the history of computing. That's ok.
Language has meaning within communities. This is our community. GitLab, GitHub, Microsoft, and most HN readers do understand the mainstream meanings -- within our community -- of "Free Software" and "Open Source". This is just like when physicists say a nuclear reactor goes "critical" they immediately understand the term, even when to a layperson it sounds scary and in common language "critical" means something else.
(Also, the fact that "intelligence" has a jargon meaning other than "smartness" is a good example that that is in fact how language works.)
> ...and all such modifications and/or patches may only be used, copied, modified, displayed, distributed, or otherwise exploited with a valid GitLab Enterprise Edition subscription for the correct number of user seats.
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.
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Their license says...
Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may copy and modify the Software for development and testing purposes, without requiring a subscription. You agree that GitLab and/or its licensors (as applicable) retain all right, title and interest in and to all such modifications. You are not granted any other rights beyond what is expressly stated herein. Subject to the foregoing, it is forbidden to copy, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell the Software.
The ability to reuse code is IMO an important part of both open source and free software.
Edit: They call it Shared Source actually: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource/default.aspx
Open source doesn't mean you can't charge for your work.
> Generally, open source refers to a computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use or modification from its original design.
You cannot do that with Gitlab EE but you can do it with the community version. The community version is a subset of Gitlab EE with a few features missing. But I completely agree. You cannot have it both ways. I don't think Gitlab could support their work just by providing commercial support. They need to have a "not so open source" version to sell. And just providing you with the source code to verify (and possible modify and fix if they were to ever go bankrupt), is a huge advantage over a fully closed source solution such as Github.
If you cannot deploy it without a paid subscription, it's not Open Source by most commonly accepted definitions of the term.
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[0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.en....
In fact, the OSD is nearly identical to the Debian Free Software Guidelines [1].
The meaning of Open Source is a lot more precise than just "the source code shall be available". See:
Here's the overlap diagram with a bunch more detail. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html