People often use the OSI’s Open Source Definition when using the term “open source”.
Which is one of the possible definitions. Mine is “you can see the code”. Everything else falls into “free software”.
That’s nice. If your goal is to ever talk to people about open source software, that’s going to create a lot of unnecessary confusion.
On top of that, accepting this bolsters companies to use this kind of a definition specifically to take advantage of the mental model that many people have connecting “open source” with OSI.
If your goal is to ever talk to people about open source software, that’s going to create a lot of unnecessary confusion.
I guess that my definition of open source is not that uncommon, given that the terms “free software” and “libre software” exist and are rather well-established by this point.
