Open source: prescriptive VS descriptive definition
Tags: opensource, openscience, openeducation
Published: 2024-01-30 13:20:48

The notion of open source is constantly being shaped. A word that is constantly being defined in relation to the reality it seeks to describe.

Words rarely have a single meaning and sense in which everyone agrees. Word meanings are contextual, varying from one social group to another.

There are different social groups using the term « open source », each of them giving a different interpretation, more or less compatible, transforming its signification over the time.

We have at least the following social groups:
- The liberal and strict approach of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and the Open Source Definition, first to formalize (≠ origin) the term.
- Those unfamiliar with this Open Source Definition, who see open source mainly as a matter of making sources freely available, without any particular licensing rules. The largest group, and in this respect one of the most important to shape the notion.
- Ethical or business actors, which may restrict some use in contradiction to the Open Source Definition and the first social group.
- People considering open source beyond software, around the availability of sources for digital resources.

Interpretations that sometimes become conflicting, where some reject the other's approach as being about « open source » but where everyone uses the notion anyway.

If a social group continues with the wording in a way denied by others, the meanings will not be universal but with its variations. Words depend first and foremost on popular usage.

We can see that some people are trying to impose the meaning they consider appropriate, a meaning sometimes not accepted and deliberately rejected. Then, the popular usage will remain, with easy support of the biggest group with very flexible criteria.

Words can't be imposed, and definition are regular sources of conflict.

You can have descriptive or prescriptive definition, a definition based on the popular usage or to specify the meaning considered to be correct. The prescriptive approach may be really frequently broken, the « descriptive grammars precede prescriptive grammars: a language needs to be carefully and thoroughly studied and described before any sort of prescriptions can be formulated. »

« A lack of adherence to a prescriptive grammar can – and often does – have social repercussions that are typically socially or opinion-based ».

The open source movement has a definition that it seeks to prescribe from a very little-thought-out and constructed definition, causing social problems in a fight certainly destined to fail for linguistic reasons.

Being a prescriptivist, even more on a poorly crafted definition, seems risky and easily problematic.

The open source movement needs linguists! Organisations which aim to define a widely used word without any of them will probably cause undesired damage ?

The notion of « open source » does not have a fixed meaning and is being socially shaped. The project open-source-undefined.org push for a descriptive approach.

Sources: [Descriptive versus Prescriptive Grammar](http://elihinkel.org/downloads/Descriptive%20v%20Prescriptive.pdf), Eli Hinkel