Perhaps... when I look at an Open Source codebase, I expect there to not just be source you can read, but also a way to contribute and engage with the codebase creators, beyond just bug reporting (aka. Github Issues).
While it may technically be open source due to it's license and you can literally go look at the source - Microsoft is operating these codebases as-if they are proprietary. Every decision is made out of public - and I would not be surprised to learn they have their own internal tracker for the "real" backlog items. You frequently see command/comments by Microsoft employees which clearly are triggering workflows in their real backlog tracker, and near-zero discussion happens in Github by Microsoft employees, and when it does - it's clearly through a PR filter.
Like I said, beggars can't be choosers and it's better to have this than nothing - but I don't really think Microsoft has grasped the true concept of FOSS as-of yet.
> Is SQLite not open-source?
Not really in my opinion either. There's no way to contribute at all... best you can do it raise hell on the forums about a particular issue you want to see fixed. So while it's Open Source in the strict sense, it's not Open Source in the general sense.
Whether a project is developed by a community or by a single entity holding all keys is completely orthogonal to being Open Source/Free Software. There's nothing wrong in putting one kind of projects above the other, but you may want to revise "your opinion" if you want to stay communicative, because terms and definitions are only useful when people agree on what they mean.
The terminology for this is the cathedral model and the bazaar model. Under the former model, code is released from 'on high'. Under the latter, it's developed in the open and with cooperation with the community. Both count as Free and Open Source software though, provided of course that a FOSS licence is used.
I think most projects are genuinely like this though, even ones that accept outside contributions more earnestly. I understand why you'd associate open to contributions with open source but I think its a mistake to treat the relationship as required rather than common.
The sibling comments contain some sharper critique of Microsoft if you haven't read them yet.
While it may technically be open source due to it's license and you can literally go look at the source - Microsoft is operating these codebases as-if they are proprietary. Every decision is made out of public - and I would not be surprised to learn they have their own internal tracker for the "real" backlog items. You frequently see command/comments by Microsoft employees which clearly are triggering workflows in their real backlog tracker, and near-zero discussion happens in Github by Microsoft employees, and when it does - it's clearly through a PR filter.
Like I said, beggars can't be choosers and it's better to have this than nothing - but I don't really think Microsoft has grasped the true concept of FOSS as-of yet.
> Is SQLite not open-source?
Not really in my opinion either. There's no way to contribute at all... best you can do it raise hell on the forums about a particular issue you want to see fixed. So while it's Open Source in the strict sense, it's not Open Source in the general sense.