this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Source Available < Open Source < Free Software

These terms have specific definitions, where each greater term is more specific than the lesser*.

SSPL is in the "Source Available" tier.

The OSI defines the term "open source," and the FSF defines the term "free software." The number one term of open source, greater than the availability of the source code, is the freedom to redistribute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-source_software_licenses

* Free Software isn't exactly a subset of Open Source. There are a few licenses which are considered Free but not Open: the original BSD license, CC0, OpenSSL, WTFPL, XFree86 1.1, and Zope 1.0.

[–] JackbyDev 3 points 7 months ago

I don't believe we should let the OSI and FSF be the absolute final say in what people consider to be open source/free software.

The number one term of open source, greater than the availability of the source code, is the freedom to redistribute.

SSPL allows this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Absolutely. The source of Windows is widely made available to innumerable third parties, yet I've never seen anyone claim that it's open source.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I didn't think the Windows source is widely available, only the compiled form.

.Net core is open source though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

A lot of large companies have access to the Windows source tree. It's quite common.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's not "source available" because the software is not released through a source code distribution model.

Companies may have access in order to produce better drivers or handle security incidents, but those are back-room deals, not part of Windows' distribution model.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago