[License-discuss] How can we as a community help empower authors outside license agreements?

[Tobie Langel]

On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 5:17 PM Gil Yehuda via License-discuss <
license-discuss at lists.opensource.org> wrote:

> I'd like to learn if either is in play as a motivation, or if it is
> something else. Perhaps someone with insight into and speaks on behalf of
> the Ethical Source Movement can help clarify. It makes a difference.
>

I can't claim such authority, so I'm just speaking on my behalf here. My
understanding of what's at stake here is quite different, I think.

I believe that to many open source practitioners, the meaning of open
source is much broader than the OSD. For example, Ethan Marcotte coined the
term "nominally open source," to talk about a project that had an open
source license, but a closed governance model[1], and many rallied behind
this definition.

Clearly implied there is a broader set of values that are necessary to meet
the spirit of open source than just following the OSD to the letter.

The massive adoption of codes of conduct over the last few years also shows
a similar desire and intent, imho.

So from that perspective, the notion that some of these values are
antithetical to open source doesn't make any sense. I, of course,
understand the technical and legal concerns here, but most practitioners
have never heard of the OSI or the OSD.

So I don't think there's a desire to leverage the open source brand value
at all here (of course open source isn't a brand), nor do I believe
most open source practitioners have heard of the term "source available." I
hadn't until fairly recently.

"Open source" is just the term open source practitioners use to describe
what they do, and their conception of what that implies that increasingly
includes elements that fall outside of what the OSD accepts as such. Hence
the tension.

I hope this helps.

--tobie

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[1] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/seven-into-seven/
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