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It's increasingly hard to see how software freedom is present in cases when there's no realistic community access to source code. The barriers these days can come from complex codebases that no single mind can grasp or use of open-but-closed models.
As a consequence, OSI receives more complaints from community members about "open yet closed" than any other topic. Companies of all sizes who loudly tout their love for open source yet withhold source code from non-customers generate the most enquiries of this type. When approached, OSI contacts these companies on behalf of the community but the response is always that they are "within their rights" under the relevant open source licenses and can do what they please.
[...] Interestingly it's common that the companies involved obtained the source code they are monetising under an open source license, while they themselves own the copyrights to a tiny percentage of the code. They can be considered to have enclosed the commons, enjoying the full benefits of open source themselves — and celebrating it — but excluding others from collaboration on the same terms.
Source: Is Open Yet Closed Still OK?
(Score: 2) by romlok on Monday December 04 2017, @04:44AM
Well, that may be the position of Stallman and the FSF, but the existence of copyleft licenses does not in itself imply that all software should be copylefted. A license is a tool, and one should pick what one subjectively considers the best tool for the job at the time.
If someone gets upset about permissively-licensed software being closed at all, I would put them into the "hippy" category (expecting everyone to "play nice" even when they don't have to).