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Comment by basedtho | Hacker News Reader

it may not be free software, but it is open source

The term of art is "source available" - "open source" means something different.

As far as I am aware, a usual term of art is also "shared source" (this term was in particular used by Microsoft in the past).

My understanding was "shared source" was MS's particular license for "source available" not their term for the practice.

"Shared source" was an umbrella term by Microsoft for its licenses that allows access to the source code. Among these licenses were ones that were also open-source licenses, but also ones that were not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shared_Source_Ini... lists the following licenses:

- Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL) [open source]

- Microsoft Reciprocal License (Ms-RL) [open source]

- Microsoft Limited Public License (Ms-LPL) [not open source]

- Microsoft Limited Reciprocal License (Ms-LRL) [not open source]

- Microsoft Reference Source License (Ms-RSL) [not open source]

So, "shared source" was clearly not a particular license by MS.

Also, at that time, Microsoft tried to establish this term (by its Shared Source Initiative) for the general concept of "source code is available, but the license is not necessarily open source".

In the linked Wikipedia article, one can read on this:

"However, former OSI president Michael Tiemann considers the phrase 'Shared Source' itself to be a marketing term created by Microsoft. He argues that it is 'an insurgent term that distracts and dilutes the Open Source message by using similar-sounding terms and offering similar-sounding promises'."

That's not a term of art, it's someone's opinion. "Open source" means whatever I say it does, whatever you say it does, whatever Apple says it does, whatever ESR says it does, and whatever RMS says it does.

No, the OSI has precedence: https://opensource.org/history

No, it doesn't. Just saying something doesn't make it so. Trying to enforce a trademark on "Open Source" as a development methodology would be good for a few laughs in a courtroom, but that's it.

Sorry, can you define each word you've used in your post?

I don't understand what you're asking, can you elaborate?

Edit: I guess you're asking about 'ESR' and 'RMS.' ESR = Eric Raymond, an early proponent of open source as a communal development model ( http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html ). RMS is Richard Stallman, the originator of the GNU project on which the Linux kernel is based, as well as the GPL. RMS disagrees with ESR, in that he argues that the term "open source" is a distraction from the larger goal of free software ( https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....) .

There have been plenty of other authors with strong opinions on the subject but these are the two whose names most often come up in the context. Point being, it is unreasonable to say that "open source" is a term of art (as the GP did) whose meaning will be agreed upon by practitioners and advocates everywhere.

No, the question was supposed to illustrate that if you have that approach to language, then communication is impossible. There needs to be a shared notion of what certain words and concepts mean. You claimed that they mean whatever some person claims them to mean. So the question to you was what do your words mean, since with that entirely freewheeling approach to language, nobody here can know what you meant.

So, in a nutshell: https://xkcd.com/1860/

My claim was a response to an assertion which has now been edited, so... meh. You win teh Internets.

> My claim was a response to an assertion which has now been edited, so...

This is certainly something I sometimes do, but not here. What are you talking about?

Weirdly, at one point, your reply no longer seemed to contain the phrase "term of art." It's back now; I must have been mistaken about the initial change, since you'd have had to edit it well after the expiration period.

In any case, "open source" isn't a term of art. It did not originate with ESR or with anyone else in the software development field, so it means whatever anyone wants it to mean.

No, not according to the Open Source Definition of the OSI, which is generally recognized to be the authority in terms of what we call "open source".

> No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition

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