What is Open Source?

What is the definition of Open Source?

I find this a very hard question to answer. Thrown at the crowd at CloudCamp last week by Raphaël, most seemed to have trouble coming up with an answer too. Notably, only one guy raised his hand.

Apparently, there is such a thing as an “Open Source Definition”. It’s used by the Open Source Initiative to determine whether or not a software license can be considered Open Source. Hmmm… I’m doubting this is what Raphaël was looking for.

Even after many years of being active in the Open Source community as a (little) developer, (big) evangelist, (sporadic) documenter, (furious) discusser and (big time) user, I still won’t know how to define Open Source. I’m not even sure if I should categorise it as a technology, a movement, a software distribution model, a software license category or whatever else.

Kris, I really wonder what your definition would be? Or anybody else’s, for that matter.