What Open Source Is and Isn't

[raffriff42]

Open source is:
A means to encourage software innovation among diverse groups of programmers
A policy of open inspection and analysis of source code, both to educate and provide a means for constructive criticism
A means by which programmers can scratch their itch for mental stimulation while at the same time solving computing problems that are frequently applicable even to non-technical users
Free, both intellectually and in terms of cost

Open source is not:
A way to get commercial-quality support at no charge
A free-for-all forum to ask for pie-in-the-sky software features and expect them to be implemented as requested and with no delay
An invitation to harass and otherwise frustrate a small and dedicated development staff because they didn't do what you wanted

Open source software is exactly what it sounds like: it's software written by a (usually small) group of highly-dedicated people that solved particular problems they themselves had and thought others might find useful as well.

Like most things that are free, it comes with no warranty: If it does what you want, that's great - that's exactly why it was offered to you. If not, you have the freedom of choice to either modify it to suit your desires or find another software package that more closely meets your needs.

...mmkay?
Extracted from What HandBrake Is, What HandBrake Isn't (http://wayback.archive.org/web/20150330231323/https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/IsIsnt)

[smok3]

Irc handbrake got some nifty ideas implemented (for example x.264 scale in crf units on that slider) by a single rant one individual did on irc one day. Actually before that it was pretty useless for a tech savvy users.... So I guess 'open source is also a nice rant' definition is probably missing ;). Handbrake is quite obviously targeted at non - tech users, so that is exactly the user's they will get.

P.s. For example dwm http://dwm.suckless.org doesn't need definitions like that.

[Jamaika]

Open source software is exactly what it sounds like: it's software written by a (usually small) group of highly-dedicated people that solved particular problems they themselves had and thought others might find useful as well.

Like most things that are free, it comes with no warranty: If it does what you want, that's great - that's exactly why it was offered to you. If not, you have the freedom of choice to either modify it to suit your desires or find another software package that more closely meets your needs.
Who knows what is open source? If you didn't succeed in compiling the program, the user has lost its time because the user didn't have the proper operating system or the compiler wasn't suitable or didn't know which creators choose because ex. there are fifty of them. As he has lost time and has little to learn, he has come to the conclusion that it is better to dispose of open source and buy advanced paid software.

PS This doesn't apply to free players or photo viewer. The rest is a form of contract and discussion.

[hello_hello]

I read the whole "What HandBrake Is" page. I guess that explains why Avisynth scripts as input has never been implemented. It's a Windows-only thing.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Open source is:
A means to encourage software innovation among diverse groups of programmers
A policy of open inspection and analysis of source code, both to educate and provide a means for constructive criticism
A means by which programmers can scratch their itch for mental stimulation while at the same time solving computing problems that are frequently applicable even to non-technical users
Free, both intellectually and in terms of cost

Open source is not:
A way to get commercial-quality support at no charge
A free-for-all forum to ask for pie-in-the-sky software features and expect them to be implemented as requested and with no delay
An invitation to harass and otherwise frustrate a small and dedicated development staff because they didn't do what you wanted

Open source software is exactly what it sounds like: it's software written by a (usually small) group of highly-dedicated people that solved particular problems they themselves had and thought others might find useful as well.

Like most things that are free, it comes with no warranty: If it does what you want, that's great - that's exactly why it was offered to you. If not, you have the freedom of choice to either modify it to suit your desires or find another software package that more closely meets your needs.

Well, I'm not quite sure what your intention was to post this here right now, but I think I can understand very well what was the motivation of the HandBrake developers to write this down.

...especially the "Open source is not" section. There are many folks out there that expect or do exactly that ;)

Having said that, if the you want the "official" definition of Open Source, as coined by the Open Source Initiative (OSI), for comparison, then here you go:
https://opensource.org/osd

[qyot27]

I read the whole "What HandBrake Is" page. I guess that explains why Avisynth scripts as input has never been implemented. It's a Windows-only thing.
Only if you think of it as a question of usefulness. Unless Handbrake is selective about filetypes in their open file process, it's just a matter of building Libav with --enable-avisynth. The ability to use --enable-avisynth when building FFmpeg or Libav hasn't been Windows-only in years, but since it uses AvxSynth on non-Windows, doing it on Linux or OSX is mostly for show. This has been true for several years now - AvxSynth's most notable achievement was providing a rewritten demuxer for libavformat that actually talks to the AviSynth library correctly, and that was committed to both FFmpeg and Libav back in 2013.

The real issue is probably more that Handbrake uses Libav, and not FFmpeg. If it were FFmpeg, using --enable-avisynth is simple and zero-cost, because FFmpeg provides local copies of the right headers. Libav chooses to rely on upstream system installations of the headers, which means anyone building Libav needs to build AvxSynth or use AviSynth+'s GNUmakefile to install the headers first. So since Handbrake uses Libav, there's more legwork required to support AviSynth on any of the platforms (doesn't mean that somebody couldn't build with an --enable-avisynth configured Libav, though; but like I said above, it depends on how Handbrake handles file opens - is it a whitelist of file extensions, or does it accept any/everything libavformat/libavcodec can open?).

[raffriff42]

Thanks LoRd_MuldeR, that's the way I see it as well. This is not a post about Handbrake, it's about user/developer relations.

[kuchikirukia]

Open source is:
A stupid term for something that doesn't just mean "open source."

[Asmodian]

If the source code is visible and you can compile it yourself, that is the only true definition for open source isn't it?

[qyot27]

If the source code is visible and you can compile it yourself, that is the only true definition for open source isn't it?
The whole point of the code being open is public development. Compilation falls short of that. The bare minimum is being free to modify the code and then optionally distribute the changes you've made, if you so wish.

How far you go and how restrictive the terms of said allowed modifications and distributions are is why we have licensing wars, but being able to improve the quality of the software through public, group effort is the actual point of any software being able to be called 'open source'.

Just because a chicken laid an egg doesn't mean it'll hatch into another chicken.

[kuchikirukia]

The whole point of the code being open is public development.

Open describes a state. No point is necessarily attached.

Compilation falls short of that. The bare minimum is being free to modify the code and then optionally distribute the changes you've made, if you so wish.

That would be open modification and copyright.

[raffriff42]

being able to improve the quality of the software through public, group effort is the actual point of any software being able to be called 'open source'.That's a good one-sentence summary.

I didn't start this thread to literally ask for a definition of open source, even though that is the correct literal interpretation of the the words in the title - but that's OK.wikipedia/The_Open_Source_Definition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition)

Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria:

[a long list follows]

TL;DR. I like this better:wikipedia/Open-source_software (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software)

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software with its source code made available with a license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose. Open-source software may be developed in a collaborative public manner. According to scientists who studied it, open-source software is a prominent example of open collaboration.

In contrast, there is such a thing as non-open-source source:wikipedia/Proprietary_software#source_code (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software#Inspection_and_modification_of_source_code)

While most proprietary software is distributed without the source code, some vendors distribute the source code or otherwise make it available to customers. For example, users who have purchased a license for the Internet forum software vBulletin can modify the source for his or her own site but cannot redistribute it.

The difference is often summed up as free as in beer vs. free as in speech (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre)