- OpenAI
- OpenText
- OpenVMS
- OpenServer
- OpenEdge
- OpenDrive
- etc.
Some of these names (like OpenVMS) are from before the term “open source software” was coined (which was in 1998). They refer instead to “open systems”, meaning computer systems with published specifications, interoperable hardware, portable software, etc. – things that might seem like obvious choices now, but were not in early business computing.
Yeah, OpenBSD predates “open source” by a few years and some people actually found the name weird at the time because there was such a strong association with “Open” being used to mean things like “controlled by an industry consortium rather than a single company”.
There was a joke in one of the BOFH episodes (Bastard Operator from Hell for those unfamiliar, look it up if you don’t know it, it’s worth it) that went like this:
“So I tell him, ‘you can’t port Debian to a car computer, it’s not an open system’ ha ha ha ha”
That joke was not about the car computer.
A user called me complaining that he needed more space. I deleted half his data.
Thak makes sense, thank you!
things that might seem like obvious choices now
Not anymore.
Even a heavily proprietary system like iOS is much more of an “open system” in this sense than old mainframes. It uses standard networking protocols, supports programming languages that have published specifications, third-party hardware exists …
Yeah, but that’s because of building upon open systems, not because of consciously following something.
The same reason that USA calls their brand of jingoism “freedom”
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The department of defense instead of the war department
Land of the free ≠ most jailed population on the planet…by faaaar
Department of Justice…as much as you can afford anyway
Protect and Serve…they kill more Americans than any gang, steal more from Americans then all other theft combined and only protect the interests of rich white shareholders. To the point of guarding a dumpster full of food in the middle of a pandemic.
It’s already been ruled that once something is thrown away, the precious party has relinquished rights to it so they kept ppl away from food for funsies
You can safely assume everything said from authority in a liberal western country means the opposite of what they say. Orwell tried to warn us, but those fuckers saw it as a blueprint, not a warning, and clearly they missed the immorality of it.
I’m convinced you can’t be rich, or work in law, and even be moral.
its clearly a marketing gimmick. to lend credibility to their products by stealing the goodwill associated with open source initiatives.
its a marketing trick for geeks. these people are jerks.
OpenAI was supposed to make AI R&D basically open for all, but they became closed after they realised how fucking good GPT can be. It’s understandable tbh but sad.
They betrayed their core values. Hypocrites to me.
That’s what money’ll do to ya.
If I was presented with billions of dollars of I went proprietary, I too would probably close source my software.
In an interview Sam altman said "they realise the amount of money they needed would never come only from donations.
It’s still kind of a foundation, he mentioned it in the Lex Friedman podcast.
Because they can and the only ethics a company has are those imposed by laws.
Also more things now call themselfs “open source” even not being like that. AnyType or Llama AI for example.
I’m pretty sure Anytype is finally open sourcing their code after years of it being in alpha though?
Source is available to the public under their own custom licence, but you cannot use it commercially. Server side is closed. So you just know there is no malware inside and you can propose a bugfix, that’s not enough to be open source, yet they misleading call it that.
If you can look at the source code it is open source.
You seem to be using the term “open source” for what is instead commonly called “source-available”, which has a distinct meaning from open source.
[Source-available software] includes arrangements where the source can be viewed, and in some cases modified, but without necessarily meeting the criteria to be called open-source.
[Open-source software] is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose.
edit: fixed duplicated phrasing
No I am using the term for how it was originally used, back in the free software movement days in the 70s and 80s.
Open source means nothing more than the source beeing open for all to see. What your are describing we called Free Software or later FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) but the open source part is redundant in that acronym.
Also some started using Libre instead of Free, as Free sometimes are confused with Gratis. That is where the expression Free as in Freedom cones from.
Fair enough. I suppose the terminology has evolved somewhat with time, and I can’t say I have much insight into a time period from before I was born.
It has evolved of cause. One of the sources you referred to, the OSI, has a clear agenda to define the term open source software according to their own definition. They are advocating that we use the term in the more narrow sense as you described, rather than the more original broad sense.
The Wikipedia article basically just cites OSIs definition. If you dig into the talk page on Wikipedia it is clearly a disbuted definition that is currently written.
While I absolutely am a proponent of free, libre or open source software, no matter what we call it, the narrow definition OSI suggests of open source software is still not how most people understand the term.
Narrowing the term open source software the way OSI proposes increases the confusion, it doesn’t help.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. By definition this is true.
Visible source is still open source , but it isn’t FOSS. Not everything open source is FOSS, but everything FOSS is open source.
Exactly. Also it is interesting how I am getting downvoted while you are getting upvoted - even though we are saying the same thing.
I can’t imagine the downvoting being anything other than a disagreement with that word usage. Strictly speaking words do not have definitions which are “true” in some innate sense - they have usages which are popular or unpopular among different groups of people.
The term “open source” without any context describes “source” being “open” - as clear as mud. With context that describes a range of software licenses and the disagreement is in which licenses that includes.
It’s quite ironic to see people getting confused over it, since part of the justifications for the creation of the “open source” term was “free software” being ambiguous.
This guy is deliberately being malicious
There’s a reason RMS hates the term “open source”. Open source is a cheaper imitation of Free software.
From Wikipedia:
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose.
From Open Source Initiative:
Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria: (…) https://opensource.org/osd/
AnyType is “source available”. Open Source is a term exisiting for many years with already established precise meaning and messing it up makes much harm in a world where talking about computing morality is already messed up with the lack of words in public awareness, as computer software is very abstract and need proper terminology.
You are cherry-picking quite a bit in that Wikipedia article. There is also a whole section discussing the confusion between the terms open source, free and libre.
I would venture that the most commonly understood definition of the term is that open source software simply means what it says, that the source code is openly available. And nothing more.
Free or libre software expresses the intention you describe explicitly, that the recipient is allowed to share and modify the software. Thus removing ambiguity.
Open Source is indeed a term existing for many years, probably a lot longer than you are thinking about. Trying to redefine that as meaning anything more than what is says is what is causing confusion.
This is why “open source” is garbage. Call it libre.
I agree, it is much more clear. I do like Free also, but it is confusing in English.
I prefer the term libre (free software, usually say software freedom) but there is a related disagreement regarding Copyleft being more or less libre (GPL vs MIT).
Who argues about copyleft and libre? The FSF and Stallman are clear about libre meaning the same as free.
MIT is just as free/libre as GPL, but copyleft is the logical choice when you value user freedom.
I mean I have seen many comments over the years in favour of MIT over GPL because ‘it gives more freedom’ without the restrictions imposed by GPL’s copyleft. This is just anecdotal so maybe not many have that view.
I assume you didn’t consider source code can get leaked.
Open source =/= FOSS
They had opened sourced part of, but not all of it.
Then it’s 100% proprietary.
I think they opened up the client, but not the server part. They also use some goofy license.
They’re not really open source, no. But they do at least support open standards.
Open your wallet and fill ours
Then wait until you learn how Creative bought up OpenAL (the audio answer to OpenGL and having to work with multiple audio extensions), and made it closed source…
Marketing, literally NOTHING but marketing motivates this shit
(American perspective) Because companies are not only allowed to deceive the public for their benefit, it’s expected and encouraged.
Pure speculation : the idea of open source sells. It’s more appealing than the alternative.
I’m pretty sure someone like my parents has no idea what that even means, though I guess many of these companies might just be targeting younger people more likely to know
Surely the idea of open or free is always going to play better than closed, locked down and proprietary…? idk
Hey, people view something as locked down and proprietary as the Apple ecosystem as a good thing, so not really sure about that.
They just use different language. Vetted. Secure. Walled garden. And suddenly people are okay with it.
It’s hard to know for sure why people opt for Apple products… It could be any number of things.
I mean OpenAI used to be opensource with older models or?
So ExOpenAI?
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Kinda lol
Because they’re OpenAssholes™
OpenAI is used for two companies under one umbrella - OpenAI a non-profit and OpenAI a for profit companies. Basically OpenAI non-profit does research and published it publicly, then OpenAI for profit adds bells and whistles and sells it to recoup costs.
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…well, are they publishing the research still or not?
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I thought we were talking about the word “open”. They don’t call themselves OpenSourceAI.
Not that I agree with them using the word “open” in their name, but it doesn’t seem as unjustified as you’re making it out to be.
Aux explained the reasoning though, and it sounds like it has kinda works given that there are (I believe) a number of alternative LLMs.
I do agree it is somewhat misleading though.
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The post’s question was why do these companies use ‘open’ in their names. So, we aren’t actually talking about open in the case of open-source. We’re actually talking about why the companies have ‘open’ in their names.
They do publish some open source software like Whisper TTS. Their core products are all proprietary though.
Capitalism is a hell of a drug
