The Biblical definition of open source

In thinking through the recent (and age-old) "What, or who, is open source?" debate, I was trying this morning to settle on a general principle that would settle the question, at least in my own mind. I thought I was through with the question, but then I read Stephen O'Grady's perspective (very balanced, as ever, and very pragmatic), as well as r0ml's, and finishing up with Michael Tiemann's (who is somewhat authoritative on what open source means, given that he's the president of the OSI, which defines open source licensing and, hence, open source).

But I didn't stop with these authorities. I actually turned to the Bible in the wee hours of this London morning. A biblical scripture from Matthew came to mind:

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. (Matthew 15:11)

Using a more positive paraphrase of this scripture, it's not what I consume that makes me open source, but what I produce.

This is why companies like EnterpriseDB are clearly not open source companies. They may be great companies (I, for one, really like EnterpriseDB), but they are not great open source companies.

Why? Because their primary products are not open source. Some say this is just a BSD vs. GPL issue (i.e., BSD-friendly companies aren't forced to release their code as open source, but this doesn't mean they don't contribute a lot of code to BSD projects). This is complete nonsense, as Dave Dargo points out. It's fine that BSD-style licensing does not require code contribution. But for a company to claim its open source bona fides, it must release source code. That is the essence of open source: what I produce/distribute/share. Not what I consume/keep.

So, let's try this:

An open source company is one that, as its core revenue-generating business, actively produces, distributes, and sells (or sells services around) software under an OSI-approved license.

Thoughts? Comments?