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Comment by andrewshadura | Hacker News Reader

You deny your users the most basic freedom there is, the freedom to use your software for any purpose without discrimination. This is wrong, and so is your attempt to misuse and redefine the term "open source software".

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This is the second time today that someone mistakes open source and free software.

See: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

I don't blame you, it's a bit schadenfreude on my part because "open source" companies try to dress as free software but aren't

No. Open source is the same as free software. It is a marketing term for free software, that defines the same concept in more practical terms. If you actually read the article you linked, you would have known that.

Open source is not the same as free software.

There are broadly two camps: Camp 1 who advocate for free software & free software alone, and Camp 2 who advocate for "open source" being an all-encompassing umbrella term for a few things, including free software. Those in Camp 1 are typically not supportive of the goals of those in Camp 2. Those in Camp 2 do often try and equivocate the two terms.

No, it really is. Open source is equivalent to free software in everything but definition, and does not include anything that is not free software. There are minor disagreements between different people from the two camps which licenses to accept (e.g. Debian where this definition originated from, does not consider GFDL with invariant sections free, while FSF apparently does).

It really is the whole point of it, define more clearly what criteria must be fulfilled for software to be considered free software.

> Open source is equivalent to free software in everything but definition

Is this a typo?

No, it isn’t. Open source and free software define the same thing in different ways. FSD defines the user’s freedoms, OSD defines what the license cannot forbid. The end result is the same though.

It's not, because Free Software handles practical and ethical advantages as an indivisible unit, while open source focus only on promoting practical advantages.

You are missing the point. The definition of free software focuses on the freedoms of the user, but these freedoms are not easy to verify against a specific software license. The practical aspect of the open source definition (which really is the Debian free software guidelines with the word Debian removed) is that it gives you a toolkit, ten criteria that a licence must fulfil to be considered free software. Importantly, when this definition was created, the alternative, the free software definition, was incomplete and lacked the freedom zero [0]. Even more importantly, that text apparently wasn’t widely known back then, and even Richard Stallman himself liked the DFSG as a definition of free software [1].

[0]: https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull1.txt

[1]: https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1129863&cid=268758...

More specifically, their license doesn't meet these criteria of open source software (which are the same as the Debian free software guidelines):

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

You replied to "You deny your users the most basic freedom there is, the freedom to use your software for any purpose without discrimination." and caim that open source isn't about that.

Let's see https://opensource.org/definition-annotated/, _the_ definition for open source, specifically the sections titled "No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups" and "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor":

"The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons."

"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."

So what GP claimed seems to be exactly Open Source's point, no?

The way we crafted it is not clear. Our idea is straightforward: if you want to use the software, you can do so for free, whether for personal use or within an organization. However, if you aim to sell it for profit, you need to contribute to its creation in some way; this is why permission is required. At least, that's the case at this early stage.

That means it's zero-cost and source available, not open source. As it's your software that's your choice, but please don't abuse the term "open source" to describe it. It's no more "open source" than, say, DaVinci Resolve is.

> It's no more "open source" than, say, DaVinci Resolve is.

DaVinci Resolve is not source available. Anytype does not restrict you from forking the code as long as it is non-commercial. And it also lets you fork the code for commercial use, if you take their permission.

So it is simply a non-commercial open source license, with permission required for commercial use. Sure, not OSI Approved License™, but certainly "open source". If this was not "open source", neither would be GNU GPL, because it isn't permissive enough.

This is no different from Qt's dual license except that GPL allows commercial use too. Or, like Creative Commons NC licenses, but for software.

Amen!

Open-Source is a generic term. It's the opposite of "closed-source".

The OSI is on the record on this: https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p...

The only people who want to push the whole "The OSI's version of Free Software" defines "open-source" rather than "OSI Approved License™" are the Anti-Property GPL folks that never liked the term "open source" anyway, the trolls that want to force other people to work for free, and the people at the OSI

Yes you are right. It's not even open source...

Which is the first time?

Any hacker news link?

> This is wrong

This is a highly subjective take - it might be better to stick to objective dictionary definitions.

This project clearly isn't open source, & shouldn't be advertised as such, but on the other hand the intent here is a common/popular one these days, & its not the first of its kind: I'm surprised no-one has yet coined a term for this relatively new breed of "faux-pen source" or whatever it is.

Our idea is straightforward: if you want to use the software, you can do so for free, whether for personal use or within an organization. However, if you aim to sell it for profit, you need to contribute to its creation in some way; this is why permission is required. At least, that's the case at this early stage.

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