"Atom won't be closed source, but it won't be open source either."

That sounds like closed source. I don't see how there could be a gray area here. Either I can compile Atom from source, or it's not open source.

That is disappointing I understand that work deserves money but I wanted a viable competitor to the big 2.<p>Emacs has gotten better because of XEmacs, vim may get better because of newvim, but that won&#x27;t be possible here unless you want to contribute your time for a closed source project and hope that whoever sees your pull request chooses to merge it.<p>Here&#x27;s hoping they change their mind and perhaps develop a few useful paid extensions or something like that instead.

It can either be:<p>1. Open Source - The source is available under a license recognized as open source so others can contribute to and build on it (think Firefox).<p>2. Closed Source - The application may use certain open source components and abide by their licenses and distribute their source code but the application as a whole does not have the full source to it available under any circumstances (think Mac OS X)<p>3. Shared Source - The full application source is available for analysis under a specific agreement or license, possibly paid, but may not be used in other projects or recompiled. The restrictions vary from onerous, to &#x27;here&#x27;s all the source you just can&#x27;t use it&#x27;. (think Windows, and think onerous)<p>It won&#x27;t be 1, so it will be either 2 or 3. If 3, it could just all be available for free for analysis but not licensed for any other use.

Some companies choose not to open source their stuff because it opens up more opportunities for revenue.<p>This insistence that everything be open source or it is somehow inferior is tantamount to the people raging over 0.99 apps. How dare they not give away their work for free!<p>If you want a FOSS editor there are lots of options but don&#x27;t cry foul when someone announces a new one which you think is cool but then throw a hissy fit when they choose to not open it up like you think they should.

Essentially it&#x27;s proprietary, but with a viewable source.<p>Similar to Microsoft&#x27;s &quot;shared source&quot; licensing models.<p>Still proprietary at the end of the day. Let&#x27;s not dilute this with misleading euphemisms like &quot;closed source&quot; and &quot;open source&quot;. Freedom is no priority here, it seems.