Notices by Steven Deobald (deobald@fantastic.earth)

i wrote a little thing on optimistic computing.

https://www.deobald.ca/essays/2024-12-09-optimistic-computing/

just kidding, it's not little at all. i'm terrible at edits but i make up for my poor writing skills with nonstop 24 karat ideas

@samebchase @masukomi thanks for sharing this, sam.

fwiw, it’s *really* helpful to avoid using the term “open source” for things which don’t have an open source license attached. the commons clause makes this software “shared source” or “source available” — but it isn’t open source at all, and labelling it that way (even with a caveat) will be quite confusing to folks who use and read that term as it’s intended.

@masukomi @samebchase i don’t, personally. there’s very little difference to me between something licensed apache2, agpl-3, or mpl, as a user.

the difference between something being open source (a term with a strict definition, clearly defined by a single organization) and not-open-source is all that matters, for most usage. developers care about license details. users rarely do.

think of it this way. it’s like saying “vegan (mostly 😉)” with an explanation of why there are eggs in the product later on. with stuff like this, it’s just … a lot easier (and more polite) to use the right words up front.

i know dozens of projects/products go so far as to claim they are open source (without even a wink) these days when they’re not. “everyone else is doing it” isn’t a valid justification, either. it’s one of the few places in the english language where we actually have a clear definition like this. it’s good to use it.

“Of all the languages, I've saved the best for last, which is Ruby. Now here's a language whose syntax evades all attempts at understanding.”

https://justine.lol/lex/