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Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to redefine open source so badly
(www.zdnet.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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No, software being free as in beer is not a necessary condition for being open-source. And if the code is not free as in beer, the pricing model can be whatever the hell you want, as long as the code is shared when the user is licensed. That can mean an expensive license for enterprise use coexisting with a free license for (say) researchers and individual devs.
No, not in the way GP wrote. You're not allowed to have your license discriminate between users, so you'd have to sell your software to everyone, not just big companies.
Either no one pays, or everyone pays.
Open source software can be sold at different prices to different customers, and still remain open source. Open source software can also be sold only to certain types of customers, and still remain open source. Who the developer decides to sell or distribute the software to, and at what price, is unrelated to how the software is licensed.
However, because the Open Source Definition prohibits open source software licenses from discriminating against "any person or group of persons", the customers who buy open source software cannot be restricted from reselling or redistributing the software to any other individual or organization.
Right, which means that you practically cannot give open source software for free to non-corporations while selling it to corporations while still being fully open source, as the corporations can simply get it for free from any non-corporation.
Exactly!
I appreciate the clarification, thank you!