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The other day, I tweaked a script for a friend’s World of Warcraft addon. He was surprised that you could edit the addons—that they were ‘open source.’ (Word of Warcraft addons are written in the Lua scripting language) I found myself wanting to say ‘Sure you can—all scripts are ‘open source’.’
Is that true? Sure, some scripts can be compiled to bytecode, but aren’t almost all scripts interpreted? That is to say, doesn’t the device interpreting the script need the ‘source,’ by definition?
It depends on how you interpret ‘open source’.
Sure, you have the source code, but typically that isn’t exactly what Open Source means. Usually open source refers to the licensing. To have something ‘open source’ means that you are free to modify the source for any purpose, including redistributing it in many cases.
Just having the source doesn’t make it open source in the general software sense. If the script is copyrighted, then it is technically ‘closed’ except in cases where an Open Source license is explicitly given. You could modify it, but if you redistribute it without the author’s permission you are in violation of their implied (or explicitly registered) copyright.