Boycott 7-Zip Because It’s Not On Github; Seriously?

Linus Named It Git For A Reason … Look It Up

There is a campaign on Reddit that is gaining some traction calling for a boycott of the software because it is not a true Scotsman truly Open Source.  The objection raised is that 7-Zip is not present on “Github, Gitlab, nor any public code hosting” and therefore is not actually Open Source.  The fact that those sites do not appear at all in the Open Source Initiative’s official definition of open source software doesn’t seem to dissuade those calling for the boycott whatsoever.

Indeed you can find the source code for 7-Zip on Sourceforge, an arguably much easier site to deal with than the Gits, and it is indeed licensed under the GNU Lesser GPL.  That indeed would be considered as qualifying as open source software, with the use of the LGPL likely being because 7-Zip includes the unRAR library to be able to unzip RAR files and that requires a license from RARLAB.

Their evidence of the lack of 7-Zip’s openness is based on comments from a 12 year old Reddit thread and the fact that sometimes there are security vulnerabilities in the software.  As The Register points out, the existence of the Nanazip fork of 7-Zip and the fact that 7-Zip has no problems with it is much stronger that the software is indeed open source.

You can find a link to the thread in the article, if you want to participate in one of the internet’s current pointless arguments.