It is so funny when you hear people say that they are developing open source software, but have not really released a single line of its code out in the open.
I am wondering if they just do not understand what it entails for software to be open sourced, or are they just riding the wave of the usual debate about free, open source software (FOSS) vs commercial (closed source) software? First, what is open source software?
Taking the definition from Opensource.com, "Open source software is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance." The Open Source Initiative (OSI) defines open source software to not only mean access to software source code, but must abide by their criteria: free redistribution, access to source code, and allow derivative works, among others.
For a full definition and criteria, please see https://opensource.org/osd. What about FREE, open source software (FOSS)? First, it is FREE as in FREEDOM and not FREE BEER, ergo, software may or may not be free of cost (this is dependent on the license), but FOSS allows its source code to be free to use, study and modify.
With these software criteria, common to whether it is open source software or free, open source software (whichever definition you think you like, but for the sake of discussion, we'll use FOSS), it is clear that, at the very least, the source code is OPEN PUBLICLY. Anyone can get the source code, examine it, study it, play with it, even modify it.
Simple, right? Well, not quite - at least not in the University of the Philippines (UP), and it might be the same in other agencies, too, including the government. The University of the Philippines is the first Philippine university to prioritize free and open source software over proprietary/commercial software. Then UP President Francisco Nemenzo, Jr. recognized the advantage of using software such as Linux and Open Office as outright replacement of the popular Windows and Office productivity suite.
A UP System-wide program on FOSS was supported by his administration, providing training and support to UP. So, UP is a FOSS supporter ever since. A lot of software developed by UP used free and open source software tools and run on FOSS platforms.
Take the case of a major information system developed in UP - it went to using FOSS tools and platforms when it was re-written using Java and deployed on Linux servers, and it still continues to be developed using FOSS tools (now on PHP) and run on FOSS platforms.
However, the software is NOT open source software (as of last check, its source code is not available in major public online repositories)- based on the definitions stated above. Its source code was never open, IMHO. Whilst there is nothing wrong with not releasing it as open source software, but it must not be pitched as open source software, right?
Software being developed using FOSS tools, and yet not being released as open source software exist, e.g., UP's Document Routing System. Similarly, a lot of mobile applications running on your mobile phones are mostly non open source software (developed using open source tools)- but some are, e.g., NetNewsWire (the RSS reader), Android applications hosted at F-Droid app repository (which has a requirement that only allows hosting of FOSS), VLC, Wordpress, Bitwarden, and more.
It is important to understand the differences. So, is it still open source software if your software is developed using open source tools? YES, if and only if the source code is released to the public for anyone to study, analyze, modify and use.
It is not open source software if you only used open source tools to develop it. Let's call it as it is - proprietary (even if there is no plan to commercialize it), which, in simplest terms is CLOSED SOURCE SOFTWARE, like most popular commercial software.
Shouldn't software that is developed by a government agency using public funds be released as open source software, unless it has national security implications? I am just thinking out loud, but does it make sense? What do you think?