It’s become common in the technology industry today to say that open source has gone mainstream. Evidence for this assertion abounds. From the multiplying number of projects to accelerating participation from vendors who once were dedicated to protecting their source code, open source is more accepted and more of a default by the day. What the industry doesn’t talk as much about is what open source means.
While we tend to talk about open source as a singular, cohesive category for the sake of convenience, this is obviously an oversimplification. While the fundamental concept of making source code open is common, the rights, responsibilities and privileges conferred thereby are interpreted very differently from community to community.