Dilution of the term "Open Source?"

Is it just me or is passing off things that aren’t FOSS as FOSS a much bigger thing lately than it was previously.

Don’t get me wrong. I remember Microsoft’s “shared source” thing from back in the day. So I know it’s not a new thing per se. But it still seems like it’s suddenly a bigger problem than it was previously.

LLaMa, the large language model, is billed by Meta as “Open Source”, but isn’t.

I just learned today about “Grayjay,” a video streaming service client app created by Louis Rossmann. Various aticles out there are billing it as “Open Source” or “FOSS”. It’s not. Grayjay’s license doesn’t allow commercial redistribution or derivative works. Its source code is available to the general public, but that’s far from sufficient to qualify as “Open Source.” (That article even claims “GrayJay is an open-source app, which means that users are free to alter it to meet their specific needs,” but Grayjay’s license grants no license to create modified versions at all.) FUTO, the parent project of Grayjay pledges on its site that “All FUTO-funded projects are expected to be open-source or develop a plan to eventually become so.” I hope that means that they’ll be making Grayjay properly Open Source at some point. (Maybe once it’s sufficiently mature/tested?) But I worry that they’re just conflating “source available” and “Open Source.”

I’ve also seen some sentiment around that “whatever, doesn’t matter if it doesn’t match the OSI’s definition of Open Source. Source available is just as good and OSI doesn’t get a monopoly on the term ‘Open Source’ anyway and you’re being pedantic for refusing to use the term ‘Open Source’ for this program that won’t let you use it commercially or make modifications.”

It just makes me nervous. I don’t want to see these terms muddied. If that ultimately happens and these terms end up not really being meaningful/helpful, maybe the next best thing is to only speak in terms of concrete license names. We all know the GPL, MIT, BSD, Apache, Mozilla, etc kind of licenses are unambiguously FOSS licenses in the strictest sense of the term. If a piece of software is under something that doesn’t have a specific name, then the best we’d be able to do is just read it and see if it matches the OSI definition or Free Software definition.

Until then, I guess I’ll keep doing my best to tell folks when something’s called FOSS that isn’t FOSS. I’m not sure what else to do about this issue, really.

p_q,

it’s thoose kind of people you want to keep away from important stuff, so you know “open source” is the thing, man! ;-)

jack, (edited )

The term “open source” was confusing from the beginning. Insisting on “free software” has kind of an autistic vibe to it. “Libre” will probably not catch on. I like your idea of just calling it “GPL” or “MIT licenced” software etc

havocpants,

Exactly, “open source” was a dilution of free software in the first place. Kids today.

otter,
@otter@lemmy.ca avatar

I agree that there are more things lying (or being misleading) about their open source. OpenAI is another one that doesn’t match the name anymore

At the same time there’s a spectrum of open source, reflected by the range of licenses. IMO any level of open source is better than not having it, and sometimes it makes sense to restrict it a little bit.

  • ex. The reasoning given by GrayJay was that they don’t want a bunch of malware / ad filled clones running around, and I think that’s reasonable justification? I often see posts complaining about fake apps with similar names, and this might help GrayJay avoid that headache. At the end of the day, they’re making something useful available for free and opening up their source for others to inspect and learn from.

What I think is also happening is that it’s now more popular to be open source. So more people are making things SOMEWHERE on the spectrum of open source rather than closed source only, and so we’re seeing more content that doesn’t properly match the culture of FOSS development.

I feel like that’s still an improvement, but I’m new to the world of FOSS so I’d love to hear more thoughts :)

lily33,

The reasoning given by GrayJay was that they don’t want a bunch of malware / ad filled clones running around, and I think that’s reasonable justification?

It’s not.

  1. That just hasn’t been a problem for open source projects. I’ve been using almost only open source since like 2007, and I’ve never seen or heard about an ad-filled clone of some of them. Even if they are a thing, they’ve never reached me as a user.
  2. If someone did want to distribute malware clones, they won’t be stopped by a license restriction.
otter,
@otter@lemmy.ca avatar

For #1: It’s pretty common for example with the YouTube frontends, downloaders, etc. UBlock Origin has a set of filters to warn when you arrive at a fake site. Try googling “revanced”, you should run across one

For #2: Fair, but wouldn’t the license make it easier to go after the other ones legally? It’s easier to submit a takedown request if you can back it up. It won’t stop someone very motivated, but it’s a barrier still

TootSweet,

For #2, it depends what you mean by “malware”. If it’s something fraudulent, they’re breaking the law anyway. Surely if they’re not afraid of criminal charges they’re not afraid of a little copyright infringement. If you’re talking about something more like “antifeatures”, I’d argue that copyleft is better than “no derivatives” for that particular case.

Unmapped,

The ad filled clones are definitely a thing. Just search for newpipe in the Play Store and you will see them. A lot of people don’t know about the fdroid store so when they hear about newpipe they search on Play Store and end up downloading a fake one full of ads.

lily33,

Huh. I guess that’s what happens when Google actually prefer that you download the add-y version, because they also make money from the ads.

joeldebruijn,

I believe Firefox had their fair share of problematic clones but they dont protect from that by licensing their code in a special way. They protect their brand and use of logo etc

So you can use the code and create something “new”, you just cant call it Firefox anymore.

doom_and_gloom, (edited )

deleted_by_author

    •
    TootSweet,

    Honestly great question.

    While “Free Software” and “Open Source” have different definitions, and the movements behind them have largely different motivations, in practice I’ve heard mostly that there are no pieces of software that qualify as one but not the other. So in practice, they’re equivalent when referring to software licenses (though not so much when referring to the communities/movements.)

    Are FOSS and Open Source now synonymous because OSI dropped the term free?

    I’m not really sure there’s any sense in which the OSI ever used the term “free.” The Free Software movement used the term “free” and the Open Source movement and the OSI were born out of a splinter group that broke off from the Free Software movement.

    I think terms like FOSS and FLOSS are popular partly because again when speaking of software the two are (or at least in practice might as well be) synonymous.

    I think there’s also a certain extent to which both the Free Software foks and the Open Source folks recognize that a bit of solidarity between the two groups will ultimately benefit both. So each is willing to give nods to the other by sticking an “F” on the front of their “OSS” or an “OSS” on the end of their “FL” or whatever.

    doom_and_gloom, (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    TootSweet,

    why do we have two different terms?

    Well, I do think it’s still quite useful to have separate terms for the movements. I’d say it’s probably safe to say that “Free Software advocates” believe that all software should be FLOSS whereas “Open Source advocates” think it’s fine for FLOSS and proprietary software to coexist in the whole software ecosystem.

    Would we be having issues over the term “source available” vs. “open source” if the Free was never dropped from Free Software?

    That’s an interesting question. The term “Free Software” is kindof tied up in connections to Richard Stallman. (Say what you will about that, but having a well-known personality at the head of a movement, even if it has disadvantages, does have upsides.) And the dude is the avatar of pedantism. And I think to anyone with even a passing familiarity with Stallman, that comes through when you use the term “Free Software.” To the point that it’s hard to imagine the term used to mean something other than the four freedoms.

    Meanwhile, I imagine a lot of people, when they use the term “Open Source” don’t think of any particular person. Eric Raymond and Bruce Parens are much less known than Stallman.

    “Open Source” is a term that’s also much closer to the mainstream. Folks who say “Open Source” are “normies”. If someone uses the term “Free Software” you can likely expect an hour long lecture from them on why the term “GNU Plus Linux” is better than “GNU Slash Linux”.

    I think maybe when companies started “open washing” (a term I just learned) efforts, “Open Source” was a much easier target for dilution than “Free Software.” Because again, when you think of the term “Free Software,” you think of pedantic Stallman listing off the easy-to-enumerate four freedoms. When you think of the term “Open Source,” you probably think of a Firefox logo and not Raymond or Parens and not really the ten specific points in the OSI definition.

    So in a way, I wonder if “Open Source” hasn’t served as a bit of a shield for “Free Software”. Because “Open Source” was the easier target and “Free Software” is a much more niche concept. (And also arguably because Linus/Linux is more associated with Open Source than Free Software.)

    Historically, if the term “Open Source” was never coined, I imagine people would have tried to dilute the term “Free Software”. I suspect they may have had less success, but not no success. And in that case, the term “Free Software” would be eroded today in ways it’s not given that “Open Source” served as a buffer protecting “Free Software.”

    What benefit is there in referring to FOSS as Open Source as opposed to FOSS?

    Ah. Well, I could see people who use the term “Open Source” loosely also using “FOSS” loosely more so than I could see them using “Free Software” loosely. But I suppose if someone usrs the term “FOSS”, there’s… I guess a stronger case that they shouldn’t be using the term loosely than if they’re using the term “Open Source.”

    I’m not saying I’m ok with using the term “Open Source” loosely. But I did admit there may be a possibility we need to start thinking in terms of choosing our battles in the OP.

    p_q,

    it’s thoose kind of people you want to keep away from important stuff, so you know “open source” is the thing, man! ;-)

    Pantherina,
    @Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

    No modification at all is pretty bad, but Rossman in his video simply said he wants to avoid scam like whats happening to Newpipe.

    TootSweet,

    Hmm. Good to know his reasoning, I guess. I’m not sure how he thinks that license will prevent that, but at least that makes his thoughts clear.

    BetaDoggo_,

    In the case of Machine learning the term has sort of been morphed to mean “open weights” as well as open inference/training code. To me the OSI is just being elitist and gate keeping the term.

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