Why the ‘spirit’ of open source means much more than a license

Arguments about what’s and isn’t “open supply” are sometimes resolved by deferring to the Open Supply Initiative (OSI): If a chunk of software program is offered underneath a license rubber stamped as “open supply” by the OSI’s formal “definition,” then that software program is open supply.

However waters muddy if you get into the nuts and bolts of authorized definitions versus the “spirit” of what open supply actually means. Certainly, there’s important nuance within the open supply versus proprietary software program debate: Has an “open supply firm” hamstrung its challenge by sliding core options behind a business paywall? How a lot transparency is there across the challenge’s growth? And the way a lot direct enter does the “group” actually have in a given challenge?

To many, open supply is not only concerning the authorized capacity to make use of and modify code; the tradition, transparency, and governance round it’s paramount.

Everybody is aware of concerning the Google-flavored model of Android that ships on smartphones and tablets, replete with an array of apps and providers. The underlying Android Open Supply Mission (AOSP), launched underneath a permissive Apache 2.0-license, is offered for anybody to entry, “fork,” and modify for their very own {hardware} initiatives.

Android, by nearly any definition, is about as open supply because it will get. And Google has used this truth in its protection towards anti-competition criticism, noting that Amazon has reappropriated Android for its personal lineup of Fireplace-branded gadgets. However all this ignores separate “anti-fragmentation agreements” Google signed with {hardware} makers that prohibit them from utilizing forked variations of Android. And in contrast to one thing like Kubernetes that sits underneath an unbiased basis with a various vary of company and group contributors, Android sits underneath the direct management of Google with out a substantial amount of transparency over roadmap or group enter.

“Android, in a license sense, is probably probably the most well-documented, completely open ‘factor’ that there’s,” Luis Villa, co-founder and common counsel at Tidelift, mentioned in a panel dialogue on the State of Open Con25 in London this week. “All of the licenses are precisely as you need them — however good luck getting a patch into that, and good luck determining when the subsequent launch even is.”

This will get to the crux of the talk: Open supply might be one thing of an phantasm. An absence of actual independence can imply an absence of company for individuals who wish to correctly get entangled in a challenge. It may well additionally increase questions on a challenge’s long-term viability, evidenced by the numerous open supply corporations which have switched licenses to guard their business pursuits.

“If you concentrate on the sensible accessibility of open supply, it goes past the license, proper?” Peter Zaitsev, founding father of open supply database providers firm Percona, mentioned within the panel dialogue. “Governance is essential, as a result of if it’s a single company, they will change a license like ‘that.’”

These sentiments have been echoed in a separate discuss by Dotan Horovits, open supply evangelist on the Cloud Native Computing Basis (CNCF), the place he mused about open supply “turning to the darkish aspect.” He famous that most often, points come up when a single-vendor challenge decides to make adjustments based mostly by itself enterprise wants amongst different pressures. “Which begs the query, is vendor-owned open supply an oxymoron?” Horovits mentioned. “I’ve been asking this query for a great few years, and in 2025 this query is extra related than ever.”

The AI issue

These debates gained’t be going anyplace anytime quickly, as open supply has emerged as a significant point of interest within the AI realm.

China’s DeepSeek arrived with a bang off the again of open supply hype, and whereas the fashions’ MIT licenses are very a lot acknowledged as open supply, there stays black holes round coaching information amongst different elements. Which is why researchers at Hugging Face are attempting to create a fair “extra open” model of DeepSeek’s reasoning mannequin.

Meta, in the meantime, has lengthy tooted its open supply horn almost about its Llama-branded giant language fashions (LLMs), despite the fact that Llama isn’t open supply by most estimations — the fashions, whereas maybe extra “open” than others, have business restrictions.

“I’ve my quibbles and issues concerning the open supply AI definition, however it’s actually clear that what Llama is doing isn’t open supply,” Villa mentioned.

Emily Omier, a guide for open supply companies and host of the Enterprise of Open Supply podcast, added that such makes an attempt to “corrupt” the which means behind “open supply” is testomony to its inherent energy.

“It goes to indicate how sturdy the model of open supply is — the truth that persons are making an attempt to deprave it, implies that individuals care,” Omier mentioned in the course of the panel dialogue.

A lot of this can be for regulatory causes, nonetheless. The EU AI Act has a particular carve-out for “free and open supply” AI programs (except for these deemed to pose an “unacceptable danger”). And Villa says this goes a way towards explaining why an organization would possibly wish to rewrite the rulebook on what “open supply” truly means.

“There are many actors proper now who, due to the model fairness [of open source] and the regulatory implications, wish to change the definition, and that’s horrible,” Villa mentioned.

Clear parameters

Whereas there are clear arguments for making use of extra standards that comes with the “spirit” of what open supply is meant to be all about, having clear parameters — as outlined by a license — retains issues easy and fewer topic to nuanced subjectivity.

How a lot group engagement can be obligatory for one thing to be actually “open supply”? On a sensible and authorized stage, protecting the definition restricted to the license is sensible.

Stefano Maffulli, government director on the OSI, mentioned that whereas some organizations and foundations do lean into concepts round “open design, group, and growth,” these are all essentially philosophical ideas.

“The purpose of getting definitions is to have standards that may be scored, and specializing in licensing is how that’s completed,” Maffulli mentioned in an announcement issued to Trendster. “The worldwide group and business have come to depend on the Open Supply Definition and now the Open Supply AI Definition as goal measures that they will depend on.”