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I'm aware that OSI believes it has a monopoly on the term. I was more polling the general tech population on their own internal definition of open source. I may have worded the poll poorly -- I tried to avoid imparting any preconceived notions. But I probably should have worded the title: what does the term "open source" mean to you?

From my small user surveys, "open source" means a lot of things.



>> From my small user surveys, "open source" means a lot of things.

Asking people to vote on something does not change the meaning.

The term "open source" referring to the distribution of source code and the rights associated with it have historical origins that are well-documented:

https://opensource.org/history/

https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/The-Brains-Behind-Fr...

https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/FREEWARE-PIONEERS-In...

https://linuxgazette.net/issue28/rossum.html

If you want to use some other license and call it "open source", then don't be surprised when people call it out for whatever the differences are.




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