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Comment by _benedict | Hacker News Reader

But nobody’s doing that? I think a bunch of people basically never agreed with you on the definition, it just never mattered much as the distinction didn’t matter yet. Most people don’t think much about how they use words, they just use them.

To use your example, it might be that murder evolved from meaning “a crime has been committed” to meaning a specific crime. Which, um, is exactly what happened.

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Unfortunately people need to think about how they use words. Definitions exist for a reason, otherwise meaning is lost and confusion reigns. The legal definition of murder didn't haphazardly evolve, it was deliberately enshrined in statute and common law (to include intent, unlawfulness etc).

The definition of open source is the same. It's not a random thing, it has specific elements which make up the definition. You may not like or agree with those elements, but then it's probably better that you go off and a) define something else for your purposes b) ignore the definition and be subject to legal redress if you contravene the definition.

One useful place to start with the definition (and there are, of course, many specific types of licenses, some of which are more restrictive than others) is https://opensource.org/osd

Firstly, the Oxford English Dictionary uses a different definition, as does Wikipedia. It’s far from clear why we would prefer OSD, and by these other definitions you’re the one using the word incorrectly.

Secondly, good luck convincing everyone they “need to think about how they use words”

Thirdly, “legal redress”!?

>> they “need to think about how they use words” Yeah I know, but we've got to try, right? Otherwise it's anarchy out there. :)

>> 'legal redress'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_license_litigation

I don’t see anything there on the use of the term open source, just lots of open source related disputes?

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