This keeps happening. At a recent workshop, a company presented its proprietary energy planning software as open-source. In energy terms, it is like marketing coal-fired power as renewable energy. The label matters because people make decisions based on it.
And the definition is actually very simple.
Open-source is not defined by how much open-source code exists somewhere in the technology stack. It is defined by the rights granted to users.
If users cannot independently run, study, modify, and share the software, it is proprietary software. It does not matter whether 60% or 100% of the codebase depends on open-source components.
This is not a matter of opinion. The definitions established by the Free Software Foundation and the Open-Source Initiative (OSI) make this very clear.
And for energy planning, this matters.
The software used to plan energy/grid systems influences decisions worth millions, or even billions, of dollars every year.
Open-source software enables transparency, scrutiny, collaboration, and digital sovereignty. Those aren’t philosophical ideals. They can directly improve the speed, cost, quality, and trustworthiness of decisions that shape our energy future.
Open-source is not a marketing term.
In energy, we don’t call coal renewable.
In software, we shouldn’t call proprietary products open-source.
Let’s call things what they are.
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