On May 8, 2008, at 4:20 PM, Tamas Rudnai wrote:
> If he let's you see the source, that software is definitely open

There's something not quite right about that.  LONG before "open  
source" was a buzzword, it was common for computer companies to  
provide source code to universities and/or paying customers, under  
"license agreements" of varying fierceness.  And the universities and  
customers would customize things, fix bugs, and etc, sometimes  
providing the new code and/or patches back to the owner and/or to  
other source licensees.  It was sweet, as long as you were on "the  
list" of people with source access.  The most (in)famous example was  
unix itself, which was essentially free to most universities, and  
essentially inaccessible to commercial firms.

So I think the MINIMUM requirements for "open source" have to include:
1) ANYONE can see the source.
2) For free.

Usually we add:
3) Anyone may compile/etc and USE the SOURCE "locally."  Preferably  
without undo trouble.  I've a bit of a sore spot for things where you  
have to provide additional source to get something to work, even in  
its original environment. (BASIC52 seems to be like this, last time I  
looked.  The source is available, but it doesn't include the low- 
level IO routines, even for the original target CPU.) (This gets  
complicated in embedded environments, of course.  See below.)

Most of the annoyances show up when we start talking about re-selling  
the open source software in some form.  This used to be not much of  
an issue; programs were self-contained bits of code that ran in a  
very standardized environment.  Then came "code-reuse" (including  
libraries) and embedded systems, where a small, hand-held device  
might contain source derived from a dozen different sources other  
than the company selling the device.  Messy; very messy.  (It's worth  
pointing out that Stallman grew up in the former environment.  GPL  
and similar are a lot more sensible sounding in an environment where  
you sell "pure software" in a mainframe-like computing environment.)

BillW

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