Michael Dolan Dot Com

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007

Reminder: An “open binary” license is by definition not an “open source” license

Some confusion seems to pop up here and there and sometimes we forget that not all “open” projects are truly 100% open source. Check if the open source licensed applications or products you’re considering are also partially covered by an “open binary license” b/c chances are, it’s not the same level of “open source” that you would expect from a Linux/Apache/Eclipse/WordPress/PHP/Mozilla project. Beware the branding of “open source” as many of the late comers to the game sometimes plaster everywhere – open binary does not necessarily represent everything you have come to expect from the established open source projects.