Does the 'Spirit' of Open Source Mean Much More Than a License? (techcrunch.com) 11
"Open source can be something of an illusion," writes TechCrunch. "A lack of real independence can mean a lack of agency for those who would like to properly get involved in a project."
Their article makes the case that the "spirit" of open source means more than a license... "Android, in a license sense, is perhaps the most well-documented, perfectly open 'thing' that there is," Luis Villa, co-founder and general counsel at Tidelift, said in a panel discussion at the State of Open Con25 in London this week. "All the licenses are exactly as you want them — but good luck getting a patch into that, and good luck figuring out when the next release even is...."
"If you think about the practical accessibility of open source, it goes beyond the license, right?" Peter Zaitsev, founder of open source database services company Percona, said in the panel discussion. "Governance is very important, because if it's a single corporation, they can change a license like 'that.'" These sentiments were echoed in a separate talk by Dotan Horovits, open source evangelist at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), where he mused about open source "turning to the dark side." He noted that in most cases, issues arise when a single-vendor project decides to make changes based on its own business needs among other pressures. "Which begs the question, is vendor-owned open source an oxymoron?" Horovits said. "I've been asking this question for a good few years, and in 2025 this question is more relevant than ever."
The article adds that in 2025, "These debates won't be going anywhere anytime soon, as open source has emerged as a major focal point in the AI realm." And it includes this quote from Tidelift's co-founder.
"I have my quibbles and concerns about the open source AI definition, but it's really clear that what Llama is doing isn't open source," Villa said. Emily Omier, a consultant for open source businesses and host of the Business of Open Source podcast, added that such attempts to "corrupt" the meaning behind "open source" is testament to its inherent power.
Much of this may be for regulatory reasons, however. The EU AI Act has a special carve-out for "free and open source" AI systems (aside from those deemed to pose an "unacceptable risk"). And Villa says this goes some way toward explaining why a company might want to rewrite the rulebook on what "open source" actually means. "There are plenty of actors right now who, because of the brand equity [of open source] and the regulatory implications, want to change the definition, and that's terrible," Villa said.
Their article makes the case that the "spirit" of open source means more than a license... "Android, in a license sense, is perhaps the most well-documented, perfectly open 'thing' that there is," Luis Villa, co-founder and general counsel at Tidelift, said in a panel discussion at the State of Open Con25 in London this week. "All the licenses are exactly as you want them — but good luck getting a patch into that, and good luck figuring out when the next release even is...."
"If you think about the practical accessibility of open source, it goes beyond the license, right?" Peter Zaitsev, founder of open source database services company Percona, said in the panel discussion. "Governance is very important, because if it's a single corporation, they can change a license like 'that.'" These sentiments were echoed in a separate talk by Dotan Horovits, open source evangelist at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), where he mused about open source "turning to the dark side." He noted that in most cases, issues arise when a single-vendor project decides to make changes based on its own business needs among other pressures. "Which begs the question, is vendor-owned open source an oxymoron?" Horovits said. "I've been asking this question for a good few years, and in 2025 this question is more relevant than ever."
The article adds that in 2025, "These debates won't be going anywhere anytime soon, as open source has emerged as a major focal point in the AI realm." And it includes this quote from Tidelift's co-founder.
"I have my quibbles and concerns about the open source AI definition, but it's really clear that what Llama is doing isn't open source," Villa said. Emily Omier, a consultant for open source businesses and host of the Business of Open Source podcast, added that such attempts to "corrupt" the meaning behind "open source" is testament to its inherent power.
Much of this may be for regulatory reasons, however. The EU AI Act has a special carve-out for "free and open source" AI systems (aside from those deemed to pose an "unacceptable risk"). And Villa says this goes some way toward explaining why a company might want to rewrite the rulebook on what "open source" actually means. "There are plenty of actors right now who, because of the brand equity [of open source] and the regulatory implications, want to change the definition, and that's terrible," Villa said.
GPL cliche (Score:2)
How Can You Have Open Source AI? (Score:1)
With ulterior motives and 'controls' within the hearts of the coders and data trainers?
Its like trying to make iced tea with untreated sewage water.
Working as intended (Score:1)
good luck getting a patch into that, and good luck figuring out when the next release even is....
Irrelevant. The original author has no obligation to accept your patch, if you really need or want that patch you can fork your own version. If you don't like when the new version gets released, you release your own version - or hire somebody to do that for you if you cannot do it yourself.
Android, in a license sense, is perhaps the most well-documented, perfectly open 'thing' that there is
And that is why we have CyanogenMod, Replicant, /e/, LineageOS, and many others [wikipedia.org], it is working as intended.
The ‘Spirit’ can mean anything. (Score:2)
Does the 'Spirit' of Open Source Mean Much More Than a License?
The ‘Spirit’ of Open Source (or anything else for that matter), can mean damn near anything. Open to interpretation, means exactly that.
This is also why the ‘Spirit’ of the Law, is never going to be your best defense tactic in a courtroom.
Forks (Score:3)
Android can be forked by anyone or any organization at any time if they think they have a better patch management routine.
That is why the license matters, not the "spirit".
No (Score:2)
You know what the "spirit" involved is by what license is chosen.
What a pointless argument to have (Score:2)
The "spirit", that is, the intent of the developer to share, is the driver here; the license is just a library that codifies the said spirit into legal words, so that it can't be attacked by malicious players by the courts later on, as we've seen happen repeatedly in the land of the litigation.
It is as simple as that.
Beyond Android (Score:2)
> "A lack of real independence can mean a lack of agency for those who would like to properly get involved in a project."
Their article makes the case that the "spirit" of open source means more than a license... "
They use the Android example. I say Chromium is just as bad in that regard. Illustrated through lack of outside control/steering/participation, ulterior motives, conflicts of interest, control by a huge/powerful corporation, control by a [in many ways] monopolistic corporation, and more intere
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft knew this. They embraced and extended the HTML standard to control it. Google knows this. They turned the international engineering standard into a "living document" which is code for whatever Google thinks of on the day