3 ms·

Or it could be that "open" and "proprietary" are two directions on a continuum, rather than binary, mutually exclusive qualities...

• kelnos 17y ago
  Well, sure, you could say there are different degrees of "proprietary," but there's really only one "open": 1. Secret spec, patent-encumbered 2. Secret spec, patent-free 3. Open spec, patent-encumbered 4. Open spec, patent-free You can of course expand that out to include other criteria, but... you get the idea. I'd argue that #4 is the only one that's really "open," though a case could be made that #3 is both open and proprietary rather than simply proprietary. Of course there are those who believe #4 isn't really feasible and that some patent somewhere can apply to basically everything... even if the patent holder doesn't know it.