[TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark

[Steve Nickolas]

On Tue, 18 Feb 2020, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 10:43:06AM -0500, Steve Nickolas wrote:
>> On Tue, 18 Feb 2020, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
>>
>>> I don't like your use of "open source"; it is way out of skew with
>>> how it's used today.
>>
>> Wasn't it always *intended* to mean the same thing as "Free Software" ?
>
> No, although the differences in practice are small.  "Free Software"
> was defined by Stallman as meeting his "Four Freedoms".  Open
> Source(tm) was derived from the Debian Free Software Guidelines, and
> while the set of licenses which meet the "Free Software" definition
> and those that meet the "Open Source(tm) definition mostly identical,
> there are a few exceptions.
>
> I refer folks to the Wikipedia entry for more details:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition
>
> It is true that the most of the people who use Open Source instead of
> Free Software are doing so mostly for branding reasons (e.g., Open
> Source is considered less likely to scare the suits), but technically
> they aren't the same.  And it is certainly true that way AT&T
> distributed ditroff certainly isn't compliant with the Open Source
> Definition (OSD).
>
> Whether or not it meets Clem's "open source" (small o, small s),
> depends on his definition, which appears to be, "functionally, since
> everyone back then had an AT&T source license, we're all good".
>
> 						- Ted
>

I always understood "open source" to mean this: you have access to the 
code, you can share it, you can modify it, and any combination of the 
above (including commercial exploitation; basically a restatement of 
Stallman's freedoms in simpler words).

As any phrase gets skewed to mean something other than it was intended, 
when most people say "open source", they seem to only mean what I call 
"source-available" - i.e., that there is *some* means by which a mere 
mortal can gain access to the source, but there is no guarantee that they 
can actually DO anything with the source without getting sued into 
oblivion.  I usually say if the code doesn't offer the necessary freedom 
to make use of it. it's not "open source", it's just source.

(For the record: I shifted from the GNU side to the BSD side of the debate 
about 20 years ago.  But I hold no ill will toward people on the GNU 
side.)

-uso.