So what is Open Source Software in a Source Available Software world? - unsungNovelty<br>So what is Open Source Software in a Source Available Software world?<br>Published: 18 October, 2025<br>Updated: 25 October, 2025<br>9 mins(s) read<br>Tags:<br>#OSS

Table of contents:<br>Open Source Software(OSS) has gone through a lot of battles over the years. The recent two of &rsquo;em has been from source available software licenses and Large Language Models (LLMs). Source available predates the LLM/AI trend (in it&rsquo;s current form). And source available software has a renewed interest. So many think Source Available Software (SAS) is the answer. The next step for OSS software. So I thought this is a good time to define what OSS is. This is my gentle attempt to explain the what, why and how of OSS. And why it is still important for us to rally for Open Source Software.<br>So, what is Open Source Software?<br>The whole point of OSS was to provide software with 4 freedoms:<br>To run the program<br>To study and change the program in source code form<br>To redistribute exact copies<br>To distribute modified versions.<br>The idea was to encourage software that can be tinkered. And also be used for any purposes as long as you comply by the very few restrictions which guarantees the freedom mentioned using OSS licenses. The idea behind Open Source wasn&rsquo;t about capitalism vs socialism. Or big corporations vs the small guy. Or making money vs not making money. It was the rejection of proprietary software. So that the developers and the users irrespective of their size can use and make it into what they want. It was a fair system providing equal grounds for everyone involved. It doesn&rsquo;t always work the way it&rsquo;s supposed to be. But that is another problem. And it won&rsquo;t be solved by creating new problems.<br>Free as in freedom (Open Source) and free as in beer (Source available)<br>You might&rsquo;ve heard of people explaining open source as free as in freedom and not free as in beer. What this means is the &ldquo;free&rdquo; in OSS is supposed to be about the freedom it provides to consumer. That is to learn, use, modify and distribute the software/source for any purpose (the free as in freedom). And not whether the software is free or not with respect to monetary value (free as in beer). In fact, there is no need for open source to be free from a price POV. The Free Software Foundation encourages you to make money from OSS. This is why, back in the day, people used to make copies of Ubuntu CDs and sell it for a price. It was all legal to do.<br>What is Source Available Software?<br>Source available software means the source of the software is available for you to read. But doesn&rsquo;t provide the freedoms of OSS software. In most cases, the restriction is about forking or redistributing. Essentially, whether it is FUTO, Bear Blog, Terraform or Liquibase, it&rsquo;s always about control or money.<br>One of the most common Source Available Software license is Business Source License. You can read more about the different types of SAS licenses here.<br>Why don&rsquo;t you like Source Available software?<br>I don&rsquo;t have a dislike for Source Available Software. I think we all have the freedom to make software in whatever form we would like. Distribute it the way we would like. I mean, it is our software after all. But I do have a problem with Source Available Software folks source washing OSS. Trying to make it look like OSS is taken advantage off and is weak to solve the problems of the present. It shows clear misunderstanding of what OSS is about. The so called perceived weakness is what makes OSS so strong. It is those &ldquo;weakness&rdquo; that has made it flourish.<br>But Big Tech is taking advantage of the small guys!!<br>NO. It&rsquo;s OSS working as it is supposed to be. This is one of the freedoms that it provides. The right to redistribute and modify. It was not taking advantage. Amazon or other companies are exercising their right to fork and redistribute. What this shows if not anything is misunderstanding of the OSS licenses. Illiteracy of it. Which is a problem we should be solving cos it is hard to understand. Companies and people using OSS have pikachu faces when they suddenly realise others can fork and redistribute the software. If that was a bother, I would tell you that you didn&rsquo;t want OSS in the first place. Or that you were using the wrong OSS license. Or didn&rsquo;t know what you are getting into. Maybe you didn&rsquo;t expect your software grow this big. Be in a spotlight like it eventually did. But the issue is clearly that you changed. Not OSS. Also, you can track the code smell of it all back to somebody is making money or have used my OSS in ways I don&rsquo;t approve off. It was the same thing with Redis, Elastic and recently with Bear blog. And that is the exact reason why OSS came about. Because proprietary softwares under End User License Agreement (EULA) lecture how a program can be used. This was one of the reasons whay...