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necovektoday at 3:31 PM1 replyview on HN

The point is that "open source" by now has an established and widespread definition, and a "source" hints that it is something a thing is built from that is open.

Is this really a debate we still need to be having today? Sounds like grumpiness with Open Source Initiative defining this ~25 years ago when this term was rarely used as such.

If we do not accept a well defined term and want to keep it a personal preference, we can say that about any word in a natural language.


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JumpCrisscrosstoday at 8:21 PM

> "open source" by now has an established and widespread definition

For code, yes. For LLMs, the most commonly-used definition is synonymous with open weight (plus, I think, lack of major use restrictions).

> If we do not accept a well defined term and want to keep it a personal preference, we can say that about any word in a natural language

Plenty of people do. It’s generally polite to entertain their preferences, but only to a limit, and certainly not as a forcing function. The practical reality is describing DeepSeek’s models as open source is today the mainstream mode.

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