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0 pointshuhtenberg12y ago0 comments

It is open source, alright. You mean that it's not free in the FSF's definition of the term and that it indeed is.

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jordigh12y ago· 2 in thread

Please read my link. It is not open source in the sense of OSI's definition, who were the first ones to ever define open source. Furthermore, they trademark the term "open source", and they have even asked that you do not call truecrypt open source:

   it is not all appropriate for [TrueCrypt] to describe itself as
   "open source." This use of the term "open source" to describe
   something under a license that's not only unapproved by OSI but
   known to be subject to issues is unacceptable.

(from http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/truecrypt-or... )

huhtenbergOP12y ago

Will all due respect to OSI and its trademarks, a software with the source code that is open to the public is quite naturally described as "open source". Just by a simply virtue of dictionary definition of two words involved. I'm all for pedantry, but it's quite misplaced here.

jordigh12y ago

No. Please read my link.

It is not naturally described as such, because nobody described it naturally as such before OSI came along. The dictionary definitions in this case lead you to the wrong conclusion about the meaning, just like at least one dictionary definition of "free" can lead to the wrong conclusion about what free software means.

I am being pedantic about this because I want people to value the principles that open source is supposed to be about. I don't want people to forget what open source really means.

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