Comment by abetusk 5 days ago
Unfortunately not Open Source, in the common definition of the word.
From the license.md [0] page, under "Terms":
> Exemptions: Commercial Use: For inquiries regarding commercial use, please contact the author.
[0] https://github.com/f3nter/HardBreak/blob/fd3d2d4cd17624a3f62...
I just don't want anyone to copy the content and sell it. It's meant to be freely accessible to everyone.
That's fine. It's just not open source. Don't call it open source if it's not.
Definition: https://opensource.org/osd
Not everyone agrees with this definition. If the source is open to read, for me it's open source. The website you linked is an opinionated view on what open source is.
> If the source is open to read, for me it's open source
Not everyone agrees with the OSI definition but I'd say almost noone agrees with that definition there.
I think most people understand what you are describing as "Source Available". Could even be a commercial project.
It's not. Open Source has its own definition.
You can define however you want, but it's not Open Source. What you mean is "source available".
This reminds me of the discussion of whether if open source AI models are open source or not, when the training data is not available to the public.
I mean this lists MIT license as opensource license, when it's clearly not, because it doesn't at all mention source code. The license just talks about "software".
Anyone is free to publish only binaries+docs under this license, if they wish.
So the website is not very accurate.
>Free and open-source software (FOSS) or free/libre and open-source software (FLOSS) is openly shared source code that is licensed without any restrictions on usage, modification, or distribution. Confusion persists about this definition because the "free", also known as "libre", refers to the freedom of the product, not the price, expense, cost, or charge. For example, "being free to speak" is not the same as "free beer".
I generally think of open source as where I can see the code and freely modify it, not necessarily freely commercialize it on my own.
I think I'm about where you are in all this, I see NC (restrictions that activities are non-commercial; like CC-NC) as being 'open source'.
Sure, I can't take your work, cut you off, then sell that work as if it were my own... but without explicit encouragement to do that (*), honour should inhibit that.
(* I'm aware some licenses give explicit encouragement to commercially exploit -- I just don't think that is the boundary for open source)
the FSF/OSI are big on emphasizing that "free/open" means more than exposing the designs and mechanisms; it means guaranteeing certain freedoms and rights to the users of your software.
what you're describing is usually called "source-available".
Have you thought of a Creative Commons license? You can have a Non-Commercial clause, while letting others to cooperate with you and remix the information in your site. CC licenses are IMHO better suited for documents than things like GPL, BSD or MIT.
Thanks for your work in pointing this out! Like a trademark, we have to defend this term if we want its meaning to persist.
I don't have specific sources, but to those curious, the gist is this: open source, or more accurately free software or free culture, is not about the creator. It is about affirming the rights of the user, to use the work in any way they wish, which includes selling it.
A common phrase to correct this unfortunate misconception is "free as in speech, not as in beer". The price tag is not the issue (you can actually sell free work, like by commission or by phsyical copies), the freedom of the user is. This includes the freedom to reuse the content in a commercial manner. Just about the only freedom that may be restricted is the freedom to restrict others.
You may disagree with this, but this is just the history of the free software, free culture and open source movement, which built a significant portion of the software world we have today.