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0 pointsteilo4y ago0 comments

No, that's not what the decision says. OSI is guilty of making claims that the court did not make, and they are adding needless confusion to the legal definitions of the terms "Open Source" and "Free". No court has ever ruled on a definitive meaning of "open source" that matches OSI's definition of the term.

OSI is claiming that the term "open source" is what is false advertising. But both the trial and appellate courts are specifically calling out the phrase "open source and free" as false advertising. Neo4j EE and ONgDB may be "open source," but they are definitely not "free."

If the defendants had only claimed that ONgDB was "open source" they might not have had any issues. But because they removed the Commons Clause and also declared it "free," they are in violation of the original license of Neo4J EE, a license which is still in force, and a license which is not "free."

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pie_flavor4y ago· 2 in thread

Sure they're free. I can get them for $0.

If that statement is wrong, then 'open source just means source-available' is also wrong, for the same reasons. People who release OSI 'open source' software call it open source, people like GitHub who talk about licenses use OSI's definition, and people who release closed-source-available software clarify that it's not 'open source', using those words. The only people who treat 'open source' as meaning 'source available' are people who say 'free software' and want you to too.

And when you say 'free and open-source', the 'free' in that phrase does mean $0 - you wouldn't need 'open-source' if free meant FSF 'free' and open-source meant source-available, because FSF 'free' software requires source availability, so 'and open source' would be redundant.

Therefore you can either interpret FOSS as meaning $0 and source-available, or $0 and OSI 'open source'. The former would not have been false advertising, as it is in fact $0 and source-available. Therefore the interpretation the court is going with almost certainly involves OSI 'open source'.

teiloOP4y ago

The "Free" in "FOSS" has never meant $0. That's a possible and common consequence of "free," but not its definition. In fact, "free" does not necessarily imply $0. I can take an MIT licensed codebase, compile it, and sell it, and break no license. I am "free" to sell this code and products derived therefrom. I am also "free" to give it away.

But what I cannot do is take a piece of software that is not "free" and advertise that it is free.

That's what's going on here.

pie_flavor4y ago

The point of the post you're replying to is that you cannot simultaneously act like 'free software' has one canonical definition which the software definitely violates, while 'open source software' is the nebulous one which doesn't necessarily mean anything more than its availability in source form. If 'open source' doesn't have to mean what everyone who actually uses it means by it, then neither does 'free software'; if 'open source' can just mean source-available then 'free software' can just mean software for $0; if advertising your software as 'free' is false advertising if you're explicitly violating the FSF's definition, then advertising your software as 'open source' is false advertising if you're explicitly violating the OSI's definition.

giantg24y ago

Look at that, there's one other person in this post that knows what's really going on.

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