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[+] -75 points 10 months ago (13 children)

I appreciate the distinction, but open source is always a spectrum, so I think the description is a reasonable application here.

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  • [–] 52 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    but open source is always a spectrum

    Is it? I’ve only ever heard “open source” to refer to the source code being released.

    Maybe there’s a different term they meant to say other than “open source”

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  • [–] 45 points 10 months ago

    But the source code isn't available. The source isn't open. It's not open-source, by definition.

    The "spectrum" you refer to us about how free you are to publicly make use of the code, not whether or not you even have the code.

    This situation does not fall inside that spectrum.

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  • [–] 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

    open source is always a spectrum

    It most definitely is not.

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  • [–] 19 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    It is a spectrum (MIT vs GPL vs APL for example) but this is outside that spectrum.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    That is not a spectrum of open source. They are all open source, as in you can access the source code without restriction. These licenses just limit what you can do with the source code.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Well, yeah. That’s what the spectrum is.

    Low end: “you can see the source but can’t do anything with it” (questionable whether this counts as open source at all)

    High end “do what you want, it’s literally yours” (public domain).

    One can debate where the low boundary of “open source” is, or what makes one license more or less free than another, but the spectrum is the range of limitations.

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