zlacker

The title as written is obviously true. Obviously any project can be "open source" with or without builds. There is no requirement that "open source" even compiles! The real issue here is: "is it better for the project to provide builds?" and I think that the answer is almost certainly yes even if for nothing else other than the same reason as "should the project compile?" Now, as with all "good things" there are questions of whether its better to put effort into this good thing vs that good thing and that is a fair discussion, but having the project deliver builds is almost certainly "a good thing."

>>chacha+(OP)
If you can't build it then in what sense can you be said to have obtained the source code to the application? How can you be sure that the code that you have obtained is even related to that application?

>>kwhite+ru
Not everything is an application.

A bunch of scripts in a repo which done something usefull for someone when called in the right order can be very much open source.

Just because a commit accidentally broke the cmake file in a project it doesn’t suddenly become “non open source”. Prevents you from building it for sure, but doesn’t make it non open source.

>>krisof+my
You;ve moved the goal posts, the point was that a lot of projects don't supply the make files or a proper list of required build tools in the first place.