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Comment by DandyDev | Hacker News Reader

It is open, just not by your definition. You can view, use and modify the code to your hearts content. Sounds pretty open to me!

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By the commonly held definition of open, in the context of "open source", it is not open.

> You can view, use and modify the code to your hearts content.

The non-commercial clause of their license specifically prohibits commercial use, so we cannot use this source, and presumably the data that the source uses, to our hearts content.

The OSI has a definition of open source that clearly states commercial use is required [0].

Wikipedias entry on Open Source Licensing also stipulates that commercial re-use is required [1].

There is a term called "source available" which is more in line with your intent.

[0] https://opensource.org/osd/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_license

> commonly held definition of open, in the context of "open source", it is not open

While this is very true, the context of "open source" can't be assumed.

Where do they claim to be “open source”?

In their README in the GitHub repository as well as the paper. I opened an issue [0] and it looks like they've updated their README, at least, to reflect that it's not open source.

[0] https://github.com/myshell-ai/OpenVoice/issues/16

To be specific, while it is not a bad license, it does not quality for the Free Cultural Works mark as defined by the Creative Commons and Freedom Defined: https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/freeworks/

And not by opensource.org's definition, which prohibits use restrictions. It's not reasonable to act like OP is being idiosyncratic when this fails to meet the protected definition of "open source".

The term "open source" is not protected, the OSI (opensource.org) attempted and failed to acquire a trademark on that term.

Fair enough. Is there any shared definition of "open source" which permits use restrictions, then?

I admit not to have read the whole paper, but in the intro nowhere do they mention “open source”, so it seems unfair to measure them by that definition

Well… “use” isn’t exactly free, this the complaint. On a scale of free to not free, “cannot use this for my work” is a pretty big jump to the latter end IMO

Careful, you’re saying the quiet part out loud; freedom is about profiting off the uncompensated work of others.

Well ultimately we all need to eat. If someone wants to be compensated in today’s society, they either need to join a gift-based sub-society (see: OSS foundations, NGOs in general) or sell something. Trust me, I totally agree that freedom of information should be a completely separate concern from resource allocation

EDIT: I guess there’s a third option, “work another job and use OSS on your off hours”. Which feels… idk, disrespectful of the whole enterprise. OSS software development is important enough to deserve a wage IMO, to say the least

To your last point, people pay what the market will bear. In this case, it's free, so don't be surprised that if you give something away for free that people, well, take it for free. Importance has nothing to do with it.

As long as your hearts content isn't commercial

Open for business!

No wait…

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