• Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
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    1 year ago

    The GNU definition. I don’t think the majority sticks to their definitions, but there is no “official” definition for it by any measure. On the other hand the internet also struggles to understand that “open source” does not equal “open governance” whenever open source projects are selective in contributions from outside contributors, let alone understanding how the right combination of patents can make an open source project entirely useless for anything more than a hobby project.

    While most people follow the Netscape/OSI definition, GNU has basically started the modern open source movement, finding its earliest origins in Stallman being annoyed that he couldn’t add the fonts of his choice to a Xerox printer.

    Open source, in its lightest form, means the source is open, with no further implications. Free software (not free as in beer, obviously) is what people expect when they hear “open source”. Free, open-source software (FOSS) is what the OSI has rebranded into “open source”, but the OSI interpretation is not universal. Even with FOSS software, people heavily debate whether or not you’re allowed to sell FOSS software (you actually can, even with GPL, even if you didn’t write most of it, but people get hung up on “free”).