Hacker News Reader

Comment by detaro | Hacker News Reader

They came up with the term, and it's extremely widely used that way. And large parts of the software community will assume malice on your part if you present something as open source that doesn't fit the definition.

EDIT: IMHO it's in the best interest of everyone working on such licenses to come up with a new positive term and position that, instead of burning goodwill by trying to co-opt the "open source" label. (E.g. if I remember correctly, in the discussions around cloud software, "fair software" was one label used. Nice and positive word, not stepping on existing communities toes). And in reverse I hope people would be accepting of attempts with such new licenses if they keep the messaging straight.

View on HN

It's well documented that the term was in use, referring to "source available" software no less, before they claim to have invented it. It might be a case of two groups coming up with the same term, but they were not the first.

- The OSI claims to have coined the term in 1988 https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source....

- Here is a use of the term, 7 times, and as the main object, from 1996 http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html

- Here is a use of the term, as a proper noun, from 1993 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.ms-windows.pro...

On a separate note the OSI's original mission statement was (https://web.archive.org/web/20000408035603/http://opensource...)

> The Open Source Initiative's mission will be to own and defend the Open Source trademark, to manage the www.opensource.org resources, to develop branding programs attractive to software customers and producers, and to advance the cause of open-source software and serve the hacker community in other appropriate way

Which they since abandoned because "there is virtually no chance that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would register the mark "open source"; the mark is too descriptive" (and one suspects because the mark was already in use in trade of software, see the xent.com link above) https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p...

They have no special rights to the term open source. I wish people (including the OSI) would stop pretending otherwise. You can think that it's a good idea to use their definition without relying on falsehoods.

Nonsense. It's utter pedantry to pretend that a couple of isolated posts where they happen to use the words "open" and "source" together proved anything. In your first example, they're clearly using it as "open source-code", not "open-source code". Your second link doesn't work.

But the fact is, if it was a phrase in current use, you wouldn't just have one or two examples. There would be thousands. Where are all the other mentions of Caldera's "Open Source" software?

The reality is this: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22+open+sourc...

Can you spot where the OSI appeared? The reason they couldn't get their trademark is because they had been so successful in promoting the term.

Though, I am curious now who came out with something around 1980. Might have to dig into that one.

> It's utter pedantry to pretend that a couple of isolated posts where they happen to use the words "open" and "source" together proved anything. In your first example, they're clearly using it as "open source-code", not "open-source code". Your second link doesn't work.

In the body it is used (hyphens not added)

    2x: “open-source” not followed by the word code.
    3x: “open-source code”.
    1x: “open source code”.

Plus in the 6 word tile as “open source” not followed by the word code. And open source is the main object.

Moreover it’s not just a throwaway phrase but a label they are using for their model

    Caldera believes an open source code model benefits the industry in many ways.

    They continue to be extremely interested in DOS and support our open-source technology direction

    Caldera’s OEM and Channel Partners can utilize the open-source code models for DOS and Linux to create

I’m honestly not sure how it could be any clearer...

(I love it when I can copy and paste old arguments ;))

> But the fact is, if it was a phrase in current use, you wouldn't just have one or two examples. There would be thousands. Where are all the other mentions of Caldera's "Open Source" software?

It doesn't have to be extremely popular to be in use. The truth of the matter is that there wasn't much "open source" or "source available" software. The other truth of the matter is I have finite patience for trawling through old mailing lists looking for the term open source.

> The reality is this: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22+open+sourc....

As you yourself note there is a bump dating to... 1975... the truth of this is the OSI used a term already in use and made it more popular, not that they invented it.

> Can you spot where the OSI appeared? The reason they couldn't get their trademark is because they had been so successful in promoting the term.

No, it was because the term is merely descriptive. It would also be because the term was already in use if the PTO noticed that (but they often don't - and I haven't tracked down the documents to check if they did).

> It doesn't have to be extremely popular to be in use. The truth of the matter is that there wasn't much "open source" or "source available" software.

That's outright nonsense. Just for comparison, Linux had already been around for the better part of a decade by that point, Red Hat had incorporated in 1993, and GNU/FSF might as well have been wrapping up the tour for their fifth album. To say that there wasn't much of the stuff in 1998 is either either ignorance, delusion, or both.

Open source software projects were a bajillion years old by that point, but nobody was calling them that, what with the term not yet having been invented and all. They were (begrudgingly!) "free software" until it was decided that mozilla.org would be a thing.

The word computer used to refer only to humans who did computation. If today you said I have a powerful computer, and brought out a human, other people would correctly claim that you are misleading them.

The phrase open source software has an extremely well-known meaning. Uses like this, which fraudulently claim to be open source software even though they fail to comply with the normal definition as used for over 20 years, is simply an exploitative fraud.

If they want to join the open source community, they would be very welcome. But trying to say that they're part of a community they're not is not okay. It's especially dangerous to the people who are not familiar with the law and might make big decisions for themselves based on falsehoods.

Today, trying to use that phrase in the way they're using it is deceptive.

EDIT: Can't edit parent anymore, the OSI invented the term in 1998 not 1988, 1988 was just a typo on my part.

Just because it's widely use doesn't mean anything. No one as monopoly or single authority of open source definition.

As a private person you're free to use words as you wish, but in this case this is false advertising by a company. Go on try to sell some pork dish as "vegan" or "kosher" food and I'll look how fast you'll be brought to a court. This is no different.

You are being blinded by your political agenda. This source code is readily available and costs nothing, thus it is both open and free. Much of the machinery here is relevant to me, so I can learn about the nature of the system through the code and adapt design lessons to completely unrelated applications. Without this free and open code no such thing would be possible.

I understand that you have nothing but loathing and contempt for my approach to software development and you are welcome to promote your philosophy but you will find it impossible to bend simple language to your wishes as long as there are people who see things completely differently.

Microsoft disagrees with you, and has since at least 2001, well before they cared about open source software at all. They use the terms "source-available" or "shared source". So do... all the other big enterprises. They don't want to confuse people; they want the restrictions on licensing to be clear.

What words would you like me to use for open source software that you're not going to trample over in 5 years when it becomes convenient for advertising your software?

> What words would you like me to use for open source software that you're not going to trample over in 5 years when it becomes convenient for advertising your software?

Option a) Makeup a non-generic not already in use term and trademark it.

Option b) Just say "licensed under <well_known_license>".

What you're required to do to get the exclusivity you're looking for is well established in the rules we are all required to play by known as "the law".

We're also required, when communicating with each other, to communicate in good faith and to create a shared understanding. There's no law about that, it's just pointless to try and communicate if we can't do that.

Otherwise, I can say something like this and expect you to understand me: Most people believe that an onlooker underhandedly ignores an omphalos, but they need to remember how non-chalantly the cigar about an espadrille laughs out loud. When a menagé à trois for a labyrinth rejoices, a starlet living with a clodhopper feels nagging remorse. An unsightly impresario is darling. When the surly menagé à trois starts reminiscing about lost glory, a curmudgeonly bubble ceases to exist.

Or I can redefine water to mean any clear liquid, including sulfuric acid, and sell that to you, and claim you should've understood what I meant when you die.

What you're trying to argue for is more akin to redefining "clear liquid" to mean water, and then trying to argue I'm deceiving you when I sell you a "clear liquid" and it happens to be sulfuric acid.

The words "open source" have a plain pre-existing meaning. "Water" does not.

Now to go ahead and make your argument for you - this use of the term open source might be like if I went ahead and sold you (having to force this a bit, since I've failed to find a good example of a noun) insurance against kicking the bucket, and then I tried to define it as insurance against literally kicking buckets. Possibly you can find a better example, but that's the best I could come up with and

- "the bucket" clearly distinguishes the term from being merely descriptive

- Selling insurance against kicking buckets makes no sense, unlike "open source software" where "open" means "anyone can look at it"

- Kicking the bucket is a phrase with a much longer history than OSI defined open source software.

"Grey" and "water" are both valid words that compose in English. And yet "grey water" is a specific thing. If you showed up and started shouting, "But it's water! And it's grey!" about some water that had been contaminated with fecal matter, then you'd rightfully be shut down.

This use of the words fit the plain meaning of the term open source, there's no chance in hell you're going to win a false advertising claim.

You can always try to brought any one for any reason to a court, doesn't mean you will succeed.

Nobody has a single authority on what words mean. That doesn't mean terms don't have established meanings, and it'll make things difficult for you if you insist on using them differently.

You're suggesting that language is meaningless - that communicating a shared understanding is not a goal of language.

I'm suggesting language is fluid, never static.

So I can just decide that "Donald Trump is a space alien" actually means that I'm gonna go buy a burger today, and this isn't going to mislead anyone at all? How about that "water" can now be used do describe any clear liquid, including sulfuric acid?

Go find your own words. "Shared source" has been used for literally decades to mean Defold's exact situation - why would you not use that?

>So I can just decide that "Donald Trump is a space alien" actually means that I'm gonna go buy a burger today, and this isn't going to mislead anyone at all

Yes you can, some people will hate it some people will like it, just like anything else

The moon is made of cheese. Flubber dub. Go drink some water.

Language is useless when it can't be used to create shared understanding.

Useless to you maybe, not everyone has the same purpose.

Ok so for the purpose of "shared understanding", let use my preferred definition of open source then.

I mean, if you're just talking for the sake of talking rather than communicating anything, go for it, but most reasonable people will ignore you.

Just like you I'm challenging your usage of the word.

> So I can just decide that "Donald Trump is a space alien" actually means that I'm gonna go buy a burger today

This is actually a rather good description of what the OSI did. They took a term with plain meaning that was already in use and tried to define it to mean something else.

Now people are getting mad when other people use the phrase "Donal Trump is a space alien" to literally mean that "Donald Trump is an alien from space".

(I can only assume that people have previously said that Donal Trump is a space alien... there are a lot of strange people in the world after all)

No, "open source" was not in common use at the time that OSI decided to use it. It's certainly not been used to mean anything except roughly OSI's definition until approximately two years ago, when Redis Labs decided to push the Commons Clause as being open source.

It was in use, both in software and in the world at large (especially the intelligence community). I suppose how it depends how you define "common" but "people use the term in official announcements and assume everyone knows what they mean" seems common enough to me.

- The OSI claims to have coined the term in 1998 https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source...

- Here is a use of the term, 7 times, and as the main object, from 1996 http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html

- Here is a use of the term, as a proper noun, from 1993 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.ms-windows.pro...

OK, now find me regular usage of "open source", applied to software, by more than one person trying to sell something, as meaning something different from the OSI definition between approx 2000 and 2017.

Why? That's not relevant to your claim that

> "open source" was not in common use at the time that OSI decided to use it.

But I suspect that if you search reddit/hn discussions in that period thoroughly you'll find a few cases... feel free if you want to waste your time.

You haven't shown that "open source" was in common use at the time OSI decided to use it (1988 is earlier than 1996), nor that it's been in common use as meaning something else when applied to software since then. One company trying to sell something doesn't make it common use, either - otherwise I could claim that my water is from a "free source" and declare that for all eternity referring to free source must mean it comes from my specific river.

> (1988 is earlier than 1996)

Oops, that was a typo on my part, the OSI claims to have invented it in 1998 not 1988, updated my original post here too

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

Ah, thank you. Either way, one company using the term once before that doesn't mean that it is a phrase in common usage. It also doesn't mean that the term hasn't changed to mean something else in the eyes of hundreds of thousands of developers since them, and using it to mean its plain meaning will only ever cause confusion, and potentially result in people doing things you didn't want with the source code.

Epic, Microsoft, IBM, and hundreds of other companies, big and small, have been careful to avoid this issue specifically because there is an existing definition and it causes confusion.

> OSI […] took a term with plain meaning that was already in use and tried to define it to mean something else.

If this is what happened, then they succeeded.

Absolutely nobody is arguing in good faith that there exists a community of people using the term “open source software” to mean something specific to them, which is different from how the OSI defines the term. This community of people, if it ever existed, certainly does not exist anymore. It’s all corporate shills trying to argue in bad faith that they are allowed to call something “open source”. If it was really a confusing problem, they would call it something else; there are enough terms available. But it’s important to them to be able to fool people that it is OSI Open Source when in fact it isn’t, so they call it “open source”.

And then we have the literal-minded people who claim that word definitions are a question of dictionaries, historical precedent or etymology. These people are helping absolutely no-one, except the aforementioned corporations. Language is defined by current general use, and in current language, “open source software” means the OSI definition.

> If this is what happened, then they succeeded.

Probably so

> It’s all corporate shills trying to argue in bad faith that they are allowed to call something “open source”.

I've seen basically 0 evidence of this. As far as I've seen it's primarily people like me arguing that you can't lambast people for using words to mean what they mean (even if the specific combination of words has a now common second meaning), and people who naively use the term without understanding that there's a hoard of rabid programmers who insist that the phrase "open source" has been imbued with special meaning and using it otherwise is to summon the devil.

No corporate shill who has an understanding of the situation would be dumb enough to use the term and get into that fight.

> people who naively use the term without understanding

> No corporate shill who has an understanding of the situation would be dumb enough to use the term and get into that fight.

These are not people who made an innocent mistake. The product owner of Defold is commenting in this very thread (without any disclaimers, I might add). They want people to believe that it is really OSI “open source”, when in fact it isn’t.

I tend to believe that the product owner at Defold was genuinely unaware that there is this movement to redefine "open source" to mean something other than its plain meaning. After all, all "OSI open source" software is also "Plain Meaning open source", and it's the sort of pedantry that many people really don't give a fuck about.

It certainly didn't help them to use the term open source here, instead of everyone discussing the game engine they're releasing completely for free to the public with no strings attached and source code attached they're discussing the meaning of the term open source and accusing them of fraud.

It is not released to the public with no strings attached, that's the entire point here. There's very specific strings attached around some use of this work.

I was careful with my phrasing.

The engine was released for free with no strings attached - you're free to implement whatever you like using the engine.

The source code was released, with very minor strings attached.

Even ignoring the source then: you can't disassemble the compiled engine, modify it and use your modification commercially, afaict. That's a string.

Except they kinda do, seeing as OSI holds the literal trademark to open source.

Not only do they not hold a trademark, they tried to acquire a trademark and failed because it was "too descriptive" (and I suspect because it was already in use).

See my comment above for links: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23234029

Reply on news.ycombinator.com