this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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Not actually open source but ok.
What is "actually open source", if "here's the source code" is not?
There's a difference between source available and open source. For example, actually being allowed to distribute modified versions is pretty damn important:
The official open-source definition expects more freedoms that just being able to see the source: the whole point of having the source isn't transparency, it's freedom. Freedom to fork and modify. Freedom to adapt the code to fix it and make it work for your use case, and share those modifications.
This doesn't let you modify the code or share your modifications at all.
Everyone has a different opinion on what that means, some people get really angry when you don't use their (or some other group's) explicit definition of the term "open source" that nobody actually owns. If they want it to mean something really specific, they should use a registered trade name with a defined meaning. But that usually implies some kind of capitalism at work, which most FOSS zealots are very much against.