Does the 'Spirit' of Open Source Mean Much More Than a License? (techcrunch.com) 39
"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:5, Interesting)
Re:GPL cliche (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, in note on this article. The FSF's standpoint is that everything licenced under the GPL is “free software” but the GCC had to have a runtime linking exception added to the licence because without it, it's arguably not free software. Essentially, one can argue that without it, anything it compiles, because it links against it's runtime becomes a derivative product of that runtime, and would thus fall under the GPL, and this would violate the freedom to run the software for any purpose one wishes, including compiling proprietary software. That's the logic behind it, that software whose licence says “This cannot be used to create proprietary software.” is not free at all.
But that's obviously the issue with it, one can argue that compilers without runtime exceptions aren't free. The FSF acknowledging the LaTeX licence as “free” also heavily relied on the build system it uses which allows for easy renaming of files. I believe the licence requires that any fork rename all files which would otherwise not really be free many would argue.
There are of course also other issues like the situation with smartphones nowadays. These run software they aren't physically capable of compiling themselves due to memory limits. Is that still free? One can argue that yes, since one can always compile it on a computer, but let's then up the dimension and think about software which requires a supercomputer to compile. It can be under a free software licence but no one can really practically modify it and then use those modifications.
The FSF's standpoint is that anything licenced under what it considers a free software licence is free, but I don't think it's that simple in practice and as usual, FSF's definitions are more theoretical than practical.
Re: GPL cliche (Score:3)
It is not and never was about one person's freedom. It is about the freedom of the software itself from control, which gives all users the freedom to make changes and then actually use them. Those carve outs were necessary to increase adoption, which maximized freedom by getting people to use the license.
Re: (Score:3)
That neither changes nor addresses the fact that it's the FSF's position that anything licenced under the GPL is free software, and that it also wrote the runtime linking exception into the GCC because they felt that without it, it would not be free software, thus having a self-contradictory view on the matter.
Re: (Score:3)
The goal is to maximize user freedom. If they need an exception to do that, then it's consistent with the goal.
Re: (Score:2)
No one is talking about goals. It's about statements and definitions. They say two things 1) That every software released under the GPL is “free software” and 2) that without the special linking exception, GCC would not be free software. Those two statements are self-contradictory.
How Can You Have Open Source AI? (Score:3, Interesting)
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:2, Insightful)
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:3)
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.
People just wanted Unix on PC, that's it (Score:3)
As Linux expanded Unix beyond traditional scientific and engineering users, a market for productivity and entertainment developed. What license thee developers chose would not matter t
Re: (Score:3)
The license mattered a great deal because the licenses helped prevent monopoly abuse. The proprietary copyright and patents associated with Microsoft Office lead to quite a mess creating a fraudulent open standard for OOXML to satisfy government contract demands for open standards, and to continue using MS Word and Excel for government documents.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft's standard document in some spots essentially says (or used to say, I haven't kept up) "do what word does here" because they couldn't figure it out either even with the code.
Re: People just wanted Unix on PC, that's it (Score:4, Informative)
"Take Linux for example, people wanted Unix on PCs. First one there wins, whatever the license. Linux won. The GPL road on Linux's coattails."
Completely wrong. There were multiple BSDs before Linux was even started. Linux passed BSD because people specifically chose to contribute to it because of the license. We know that because multiple major contributors said so.
Re: (Score:3)
NetBSD and FreeBSD both had their first releases in 1993. The BSD lawsuit was settled in 1994.
The first release of Linux was in 1991.
I love the GPL too, but get your facts right.
Re: (Score:3)
Whoops, there was only one release which predated Linux, Net/2. My bad. It came out in June, while the first release of Linux didn't come out until September.
Anyway Net/2 came out in the same year, and it was complete BSD 4.3. It just didn't have an installer. 386BSD which did was based on it; it didn't come out until 1992, though.
Net/2 was a theoretically IP unencumbered release of BSD 4.3, which led (through a lawsuit) to the release of 4.4-BSD-lite which actually was IP unencumbered in March 1994, and wh
Re: (Score:2)
>"There were multiple BSDs before Linux was even started.
Absolutely correct. I was going to post that myself. PLUS there were several commercial Xenix/Unixes too. I know, I used them on X86 machines.
>"Linux passed BSD because people specifically chose to contribute to it because of the license. We know that because multiple major contributors said so."
Yep. And it became a positive domino-effect. Those chose because of the license, then there were more contributors, and Linux (and GNU) became bett
Re: (Score:2)
PLUS there were several commercial Xenix/Unixes too. I know, I used them on X86 machines.
That's true, but I think this is a discussion about the relative merits of differing OSS licenses (which Free Software licenses of course are.) There was Xenix all the way back to the IBM PC XT, but you couldn't ever get sources for it.
Re: (Score:3)
UNIX on PCs predated Linux. FreeBSD was there. As was XENIX, released by Microsoft of all companies. In fact, MS-DOS 2.x took a lot of inspiration from XENIX.
Admittedly, during the 90s The BSDs had a bit of a copyright issue with AT&T, but UNIX on PC was a thing.
Heck, Linus Torvalds was inspired by MINIX, which was modelled on UNIX, and that Linus himself has said.
And GNU stuff was on MS-DOS for ages, - DJGPP predated LInu
Re: (Score:3)
UNIX on PCs predated Linux. FreeBSD was there. As was XENIX, released by Microsoft of all companies. In fact, MS-DOS 2.x took a lot of inspiration from XENIX.
FreeBSD wasn't around when Linux came out. Dr, Dobb's had a series on 386BSD around that time which IIRC led to FreeBSD.
Unix on PCs was $$$, often as much as the PC. The compiler was often another chunk of $. They also required a 386, Minix and later, Coherent, ran on the '86 and '286 systems we had and were under $200. We all wanted the Unix environment, so we tried to get as close as we could.
Heck, Linus Torvalds was inspired by MINIX, which was modelled on UNIX, and that Linus himself has said.
Absolutely. Many of us were using Minix. It had limitations that prevented it from being real Unix.
1st, the
Forks (Score:4, Insightful)
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:1)
You know what the "spirit" involved is by what license is chosen.
What a pointless argument to have (Score:3, Informative)
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:4, Informative)
> "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 interest in creating/forcing "standards" than cooperating on their creation. Sure, there are many other such examples, but Android and Chromium together are just *huge*. At least in the mobile market, there is a competitor with a large/strong competition to Android (iOS, of course). Not so with browsers anymore. For multiplatform use, there is only Chrom* and Firefox... and Google has decimated Firefox user share, mostly through many years of aggressive marketing, Android (bundling and almost requiring Chrome; same with ChromeOS), and their many cloud platforms suspiciously "favoring" Chrom*.
With control of the Web and its standards, privacy, freedom, and security hanging precariously in jeopardy, I think Chromium is the best example of a "not in the spirit of open source." It is a project with far too many people depending on it, without adequate competition, and with essentially zero chance of it being effectively ever forked (because it would be unmaintainable).
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
Re: (Score:1)
Anyone that wants can take the Chromium, Android, etc code and make their own product with it. Why should those that dump millions of dollars of their own money in to development not have a right to decide the direction of the project they fund and promote? They didn't even need to make the source available, but they have so that others that desire to put in their own equity could fork it if they want.
The problem isn't the corporations controlling these projects. The problem is the freeloaders that both
Re: (Score:3)
>"Anyone that wants can take the Chromium, Android, etc code and make their own product with it."
Yes, and then hand much of their control and power over to Google. As I said, it probably can't be forked because nobody could maintain it. Thus, these companies are simply BASING their product on the changing code that Google solely controls. Thus, they are now 'slaves'.
>"Why should those that dump millions of dollars of their own money in to development not have a right to decide the direction of the
Free Software has a spirit, Open Source not (Score:1, Troll)
I truly believe that free software is the best for humanity.
Open Source, on the other hand, is a term coined by capitalistic companies to create an illusion of freedom while it actually isn’t.
Re: Free Software has a spirit, Open Source not (Score:2)
Nobody knows who first used the term "open source" commercially, but the first recorded use that I've found was in 1985. (Look for the UNIX1985 video on archive.org.)
It's likely you're correct about the purpose, as the prior use was in the intelligence community, which means the likeliest first use related to software was by a defense contractor.
RISC V isn't open source (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I agree with you. It should really be called an Open Standard. That is what we used to say back in the late days of UNIX(tm) dominance. You could have competing implementations that interoperated gracefully whether they were OSS or not.
The "spirit" is pretty simple (Score:2)
The differences in open source flavors come from definition of "use": share your software(with or without you changed code), sell your software, share changed code publically or privately, etc.
All the argument is really about open/free software not open so
Other criteria (Score:2)
There is a notion of DITO, deveopment in the open.
No on ever said that open source is enough.
The difference (Score:2)
The spirit of open source used to be CentOS. Now it is Rocky and Alma.