I just joined Dev.to. As usual, I look for things related to Free/Libre software. I realized there is a tag for OpenSource and if I try to make a see tag page for FreeSoftware, it redirects me to #OpenSource. That is OK I try to understand it, but quickly something very wrong took my attention: the definition provided for the tag was wrong!
Open Source came to provide an alternative term to avoid confusion over the meaning of #FreeSoftware (free as in freedom, not free beer). Despite having clear official definition, many people take open-source literally as software with publicly available code. Providing the source code is the second of the 10 conditions for software to be considered as Open Source one. I do strongly suggest going through the definition and reading all the 10 criteria.
Here my question is why does a platform like dev.to send such a wrong message about Open Source definition? I try to contact admins and I hope to see change.
Comments
March 26, 2022 15:02
@ahangarha
The Open Source Defenition you provide is obviously copied from DFSG by a company named itself after Open Source which itself claims to be founded much after the word "Open Source" was widly used in public media.
Even if I don't call it a complete scam, I never would consider its defenition as the official for the term.
March 26, 2022 15:26
@danialbehzadi@persadon.com Thanks for your comment but I don’t know what is needed for OSI definition (OSD) to be considered enough official for you. If Stallman refers to this definition as the official definition of Open Source in his article “Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software” to me it is more than enough to recognize this definition as the official one. I don’t see any point of dismissing the existence of this definition. I would even consider such dismissal more harmful than accepting it. The same way free shouldn’t be considered as free of cost, open should be considered as available.
Let me quote this line: “We in the free software movement don’t think of the open source camp as an enemy; the enemy is proprietary (nonfree) software. But we want people to know we stand for freedom, so we do not accept being mislabeled as open source supporters.”
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
March 26, 2022 15:47
@ahangarha
The point is the OSI defenition is the most official defenition available, but not strong enough to be THE official defenition of the term.
The creation of the term itself is a misunderstanding of what's going on with Netscape by the public media of the time.
OSI is just an opportunist company, created to make money from such misunderstanding and tried to provoke this gap for profit.
From a practical perspective, Open Source is just a malformed "Free Software" word.
March 26, 2022 17:01
@danialbehzadi@persadon.com I am fine to be critical to the definition of anything. Please share the other definition of Open Source which is widely used and referenced.
To me, if Stallman refers to Open Source only as what is defined by OSI, it is enough to recognize this definition as the most dominant one. When we talk about Open Source, we talk about what OSI has defined. The intention behind it would be another topic.
I don’t stand by this definition as I care about Software Freedom. But this doesn’t mean to not stop more misconceptions in this area. If some group tries to spread false ideas about these key terms in FLOSS world, I raise my voice as much as I can.
Dismissing Open Source doesn’t help Free Software camp.
March 27, 2022 20:17
@ahangarha نمیشه فارسی دعوا کنید?
من انگلیسی کیلی کیلی بلد نبود :-D
June 6, 2023 03:10
It’s unfortunate to hear that Dev.to has provided an incorrect definition for the Open Source tag. Hope the fnf staffs fix it as soon as possible.