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Comment by fallat | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to see Jagex open source OSRS as a business decision to keep the game alive forever, and for leveraging the dedicated community.

Now, I said open source, but that doesn't mean free. Even if the source was available, it would make the most sense if they kept it "non-free", as in, no commercial usage of the source may be allowed.

People are free to run their own servers, but the Jagex ones will be "blessed".

The only problem I see is if some group in a country outside of IP legality were to take it and try to monetize it.

Alternatively I hope one day Jagex has a "hail mary" and releases the source when they think the game is considered commercially dead.

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Not the same, but Jagex has embraced (probably because they really had no choice) the 3p client "RuneLite". There is an understanding between Jagex and that community that the client is blessed, but only if they steer clear of certain features - like things that would reduce how much you have to interact with UI in the game, such as re-ordering items in the Construction right-click menu for convenience.

TIL that this is why I couldn’t configure the Menu Item Swapper or whatever last week when I was leveling Construction with oak larders. I wonder what makes construction a special case here vs, say, allowing one click dropping of collected resources.

'Open source' and 'free (as in speech)' are, in the software context, synonyms. It is incoherent to say 'open source but non-commercial'.

I disagree. You're basically saying, "open source code isn't open-source". There's nothing incoherent about what they said.

"Licenses which only permit non-commercial redistribution or modification of the source code for personal use only are generally not considered as open-source licenses. However, open-source licenses may have some restrictions, particularly regarding the expression of respect to the origin of software, such as a requirement to preserve the name of the authors and a copyright statement within the code, or a requirement to redistribute the licensed software only under the same license (as in a copyleft license)"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/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://opensource.org/osd/

If you don't allow commercial use, your code is "source-available", not "open source"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software

Common speak disagrees with you and that's all that matters.

No, it doesn't. Everyone knows what 'open source' means: what the open source definition says. Literally the *only* place on the Internet where people pretend this isn't true is HN. I have never seen anyone suggest that 'open source' means anything else anywhere else.

I have the exact opposite experience.

I just disagree and use a different definition of open source than you/your sources (many people share my definition, mind you). If the source is open, its open-source. It can be free, commercial, or have any license. I feel like people with the other definition of OS, do it because they have a vendetta against companies that open-source code with a non-free license.

>I feel like people with the other definition of OS, do it because they have a vendetta against companies that open-source code with a non-free license.

No. It is because that's what the term means and has *ALWAYS* meant. You don't get to just turn up and change the definition of a term that has been fixed and useful as a term for decades. This isn't the evolution of language. It's just you ignorantly being unaware of the actual definition and using your own.

I can and I am.

No, I am saying open source code is open source. Open source has had an established, fixed definition for decades. It was coined for a specific purpose to represent a particular category of software licence.

You are doing a disservice to anyone reading what you write if you use a term with a fixed, established definition to mean something completely different without signalling that you are doing so. Language is for communication.

It doesn't matter. Your definition is legacy and not what open source refers to in common speak.

I don't know what 'your definition is legacy' means. Could you try to speak English?

'Open source' has meant the same thing for decades. Its meaning has not changed.

> Could you try to speak English?

Nice way to invalidate any current or future arguments you may have.

CC-NC isn't OS for you?

It isn't open source to anyone, by the universally accepted definition of "open source" that has obtained for decades.

Are you deliberately invoking the Stallman acolytes?

Stallman is correct when he says that "free" and "open source" are synonymous. They reflect different philosophies but the same set of licences.

Either you are trolling or very confident on your ignorance and don't care about misrepresenting.

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