7 ms·

Affirmation of the Open Source Definition

32 points by ifcologne 8y ago

sparkie 8y ago
"open source" is just two words. "open" and "source", the latter being short for source code. I hate to break it to you, but language does not work by having people sign statements to declare that you think certain words can only be used in certain contexts that you think are worthy of your cause. The people signing such statements are wasting their time. Their signature does not, and cannot prevent people from using "open" and "source" together, to mean something where the source code is open for inspection, if it doesn't quite fit their over-engineered definition. "open source" and "OSI approved" are simply not synonymous and hopeful wishing will never make it so.
- rmmm 8y ago
  Bourbon is just a just a name. Champagne is just a region. But whiskeys and wines have to fit narrow qualifications to be Champagne sparkling wine, or Bourbon whiskey. You can, of course, call any software you want open source regardless if it fits the OSI definition, just like you can call any sparkling wine you want Champagne. It doesn't mean you'd be correct in doing so.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    > But whiskeys and wines have to fit narrow qualifications to be Champagne sparkling wine, or Bourbon whiskey. Isn't that because there's laws and treaties enforcing that? For example the US isn't a signatory to any treaties about Champagne so you do get American wine labelled as Champagne in American shops I believe. There's no law enforcing the OSI's definition of 'open source'.
    - rmmm 8y ago
      I wasn't referring to legality, only replying to the idea that "open" and "source" are "just two words". For an example closer to the subject at hand, the Free Software Foundation makes it clear what does and what does not fit the Free Software definition and that does not rely on the force of law.
      - colechristensen 8y ago
        No, the OSI is acting like it has legal rights to tell people how to use the phrase as much as is possible without actually saying they own the term. This is the problem. They aren't sharing opinions but giving orders.
        rmmm 8y ago
        Where in the article does the OSI mention or hint at anything about threat of law? The OSI does have the legal right to tell you what they think Open Source is. You have the legal right to ignore it. All OSI did is say "here is our definition of Open Source, and these are the people that agree with us, and you should agree with us too."
    - geofft 8y ago
      The laws and treaties exist because people believe words to have specific meanings, not the other way around. "Bourbon" and "champagne" meant something concrete before there were laws about what could be sold as bourbon and champagne.
  - exolymph 8y ago
    Those are just protectionist legalities.
- rangerpolitic 8y ago
  Like all symbols (e.g., statues, logos, sounds, buildings, etc.), there is no innate meaning for words. We are completely free to attach any arbitrary meaning to a word and use it to convey that meaning. That doesn't mean it is without problems and that's the case with open source. The existing community in which open source is used largely understands "open" to refer to freedom in the broadest means possible. That's the word's denotative sense. It also carries a strong connotative sense in which it is viewed as a positive for business and society. What's happening is that you have a small group of people who desire to benefit from the connotative sense of the word while changing denotative sense. That creates problems when they're not clear that they don't mean open source in the same way that it's understand commonly amongst the technical community. It's underhanded and dishonest. If they want to create a quasi-open source license, that's fine. They simply should be very clear that it's not open source in the traditional/common sense.
  - zzzcpan 8y ago
    Common meaning behind open source is not actually OSI approved open source and never was by the way. OSI, for example, rejects public domain, while for pretty much everyone else public domain is open source. Broad freedom is even trickier to talk about. FSF, for example, built an entire ideology on the meaning of freedom.
    - rangerpolitic 8y ago
      Not sure how any of this would contradict anything I've mentioned. Perhaps you don't mean it to do so? If you do, you'll have to explain more because I'm not really following.
    - type0 8y ago
      Public domain isn't open source, that concept doesn't exist in every country.
  - sparkie 8y ago
    Copyleft licenses are not necessarily "free in the broadest sense possible." They place certain restrictions on what you must do with software you publish which contains code licensed under such licenses. There are several such copyleft licenses approved by the OSI which clearly do not fit your all-encompassing freedom definition. You also have approved license which place restrictions on use of branding and trademarks, and no effort is made by OSI to restrict licenses to those which also include a patent grant. So if someone creates another kind of copyleft license, which is not quite the same as say, the GPL, but has the same spirit of the GPL, including a patent grant, then are they not allowed to use the term "open source" or "free software" because a protectionist organization declares itself the arbiter?
apexal 8y ago
I'm proud to see an organization I'm active in, the Rensselaer Center for Open Source, on this list! Just last week a representative from the OSI came to my university (RPI) to talk about what it means to be OSI affiliate members.
chrisseaton 8y ago
Isn't this what trademarks are for? If they want to enforce what the meaning of a term is in a a given domain they could come up with a new term and trademark it.
- sparkie 8y ago
  Yes, but open source was already used before the OSI came about. I don't think anyone knows exactly who coined it and when. OSI is trademarked, and they are in their rights to defend that trademark, but that obviously does not extend to "open source." This statement is an attempted protectionist power grab to assert control over the term and prevent competing initiatives from using it.
  - rmmm 8y ago
    It's pretty well known who coined open source and why. It's also known shortly thereafter OSI started protecting the definition. https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source-software https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source... https://opensource.org/history https://opensource.org/history
  - tzs 8y ago
    It may have been used before they did in the context of computer software, but if so such usage seems to have been very sparse. I tried to research it once, a long time ago, and my recollection is that I found maybe one or two possible examples on Usenet but nothing else.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > It may have been used before they did in the context of computer software I'm pretty sure the use in intelligence jargon long predates the software use. But that's disambiguated easily by context, it's not really a conflicting use.
- wmf 8y ago
  The term "open source" is not a trademark and at this point it probably cannot be trademarked by anyone. In uncontroversial cases people are happy to let the OSI be the arbiter of open sourceness but in controversial cases people tend to decide that OSI doesn't control the meaning of open source.
colechristensen 8y ago
Definitions don't belong to committees. "open source" isn't a trademarked or otherwise protected phrase, it does not belong to the OSI, it is not synonymous with (has an)"open source initiative Approved License". Coining a term or being among the first to use it does not mean that term belongs to you. There are many people that disagree with the OSI about what "open source" means, and that is what it takes for a definition. There is a certain irony in the OSI talking about open source like they own it.
- rangerpolitic 8y ago
  > Coining a term or being among the first to use it does not mean that term belongs to you. I wish that people would understand this not only in the context of definitions but also in the context of culture. Neither definitions nor culture belong to anyone. At the same time, they "belong" to everyone.
- colechristensen 8y ago
  Self-replying to nail down what I strongly disagree with: >Can I call my program "Open Source" even if I don't use an approved license? >Please don't do that. If you call it "Open Source" without using an approved license, you will confuse people. This is not merely a theoretical concern — we have seen this confusion happen in the past, and it's part of the reason we have a formal license approval process. See also our page on license proliferation for why this is a problem. This is from their FAQ and an example of the OSI explicitly acting like they own "open source". I am fine with proprietary terms being owned and controlled, for example "USB". I am not fine with organizations trying to usurp the language to try to push forward their agenda regardless of their intentions (and generally I approve of the mission of OSI)
  - LamaOfRuin 8y ago
    They're not usurping it. They literally created it as a term (and "brand") rather than simply two words. They weren't granted a trademark, so their creation of it has no legal weight, but that doesn't mean they can't claim authority over what it means, and ask that their original intent be respected.
henryfjordan 8y ago
> Without this single, standard definition of "open source," software development as we know it would not be possible. There is no trust in a world where anyone can invent their own definition for open source, and without trust there is no community, no collaboration, and no innovation. Are they saying I can't trust what I read in the license files of a project? This is beyond hubris...
- Iolaum 8y ago
  The problem is when the readme file (or other marketing speak) says open source, so people think it's something that gives them the rights that OSI approved licences give, and then the license file says something else. For example, MongoDb's SSPL v1 or licenses with the commons clause. People are free to use whatever license they want. They should own up to it though instead of trying to paint their license as something else.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- kklimonda 8y ago
  Reading through new licenses, and getting them approved by your legal departament isn't fun to anyone, plus some licenses are very subtly non-free - see the JSON license with its "do no evil" clause as an example.
- mithr 8y ago
  > Are they saying I can't trust what I read in the license files of a project? That's not quite what they're saying. They're asking what's stopping anyone from claiming their project is "open source", but actually meaning something most people won't recognize as such -- for example, "my project is open source because its source code is public. But if you want to legally do anything with it other than look, you have to pay me." If there isn't a standardized definition, someone can claim the above, and all you could really argue is that their definition of "open source" is different from yours (and they'll probably ask "who made you the arbiter of what's open and what's not?"). Once there is a standardized definition, the position instead becomes "your definition doesn't meet the international standard", which is a much weightier argument. As for hubris -- in much the same way that even with an international definition for something like a kilogram, nothing stops you from creating your own, different measurement, and claiming you're selling stuff "by your own measure of kilogram" to whoever will buy it, there will never be anything stopping you from creating your own definition of "open source" and carefully defining it in a license file. It's just that if that definition differs from the standardized one, developers will either have to carefully read your license (or have their lawyers do that), or choose to use a project with a standard license that's already been vetted a thousand times over.
kazinator 8y ago
"Open source" is just English words you can look up in a dictionary; it can mean any number of things. If we disconnect one end of a field effect transistor, the one opposite to the "drain", we have an "open source".
- mindcrime 8y ago
  If we disconnect one end of a field effect transistor, the one opposite to the "drain", we have an "open source". True, but totally irrelevant here. Context matters.
  - kazinator 8y ago
    > Context matters. That's actually the point. In the context of software source code, "open source" still doesn't mean whatever these guys say it means. Only in the very narrow context of their specific organization and affiliates.
    - mindcrime 8y ago
      Only in the very narrow context of their specific organization and affiliates. That's not even close to true. There's a small niche group of people who don't acknowledge / accept that the OSD is, in every meaningful sense, the definition of Open Source.
      - kazinator 8y ago
        Most people who use "open source" in reference to software have never heard of OSI or its OSD, and could not recite its detailed points. Their understanding might not be in conflict with the OSD, but it's not in precise conformance with it. For instance, oh, "The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. " Most people, including developers, don't know what a "patch file" is, so how can this be part of their definition when they use the term "open source". Here are much more authoritative definitions, which are far briefer than the OSD's seven points: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/open-source https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/open-source https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open-source https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open-source (Both would have us hyphenate the term.)
mindcrime 8y ago
Count us (Fogbeam Labs) in! The OSD is the de facto definition of Open Source, and we're proud to back the OSI on this.
porpoisely 8y ago
A noble effort, but futile in my opinion. Trying to get the tech world to agree on something is like trying to herd cats. It's not going to work. What's to prevent another organization(s) from "forking" their own definition of open source. And good luck trying to get the differing major license camps ( MIT, GNU, etc ) to agree on anything.
kklimonda 8y ago
So this is yet another comments thread where I see numerous people not agreeing with OSI definition of "Open Source" and it got me wondering again, has there always been such a sentiment, or is it a recent one? I don't recall seeing it as much even a couple of years ago. Has there been some anti-OSI movement, and if so is there somewhere I could read about arguments against OSI? It seems most comments seem to be boiling down to "you are not going to tell me what I can do" but that's perhaps unfair.
- LamaOfRuin 8y ago
  It's not new. OSI was spawned as a more business friendly reaction to the "moralizing" of Richard Stallman and other "Free Software" believers. There will always be argument over definitional identities, especially of basically philosophical movements.
- massonpj 8y ago
  As mentioned elsewhere, the original debates around "open source", as both a term and movement, centered around "free" vs. "open", or the value, benefits, ethics, etc. of copyleft/reciprocal licenses vs. permissive licensing. Interestingly, while there is no trademark protection (i.e. ownership) of the term "free software", the founders of the OSI, recognized and honored that label's definition as described by RMS, GNU, and FSF--as well as their authority as stewards--and created another label, "open source software". There are many, many contemporaneous documents that reflect this debate. Today, I believe those issues have been resolved (i.e. clearly understood), with both the free software and open source communities agreeing that both labels and communities support software freedom: to study, use, modify, and redistribute. I personally feel, and in my experience as General Manager at the OSI, there is an increase of people/organizations raising issues over the open source label, it's definition, and the OSI's role as steward. My sense is, as open source software and communities that create it--both non-profit foundations and businesses--realize the benefits of collaborative co-creation, and see greater success, more people/organizations are enticed. You can see this in other "open" initiatives like "Open Content", "Open Source Hardware", "Open Data", "Open Educational Resources", etc. Clearly there is value in communities of practice collaborating around shared interests, and indeed these communities can operate in a variety of ways to generate artifacts defined by those communities, e.g. what is "open content"? As a corollary, success has raised the profile of open source projects and developers, so there are simply more discussions happening now across more communities. When free and open source software was less popular (with the debate focused on, how can this be good if it is developed by non-professionals, is unsecured, poor quality, etc.), there simply may have been fewer discussions. Now that "open source has won", many may be debating what about open source makes it a winner, and thus, what is open source.

32 points by ifcologne 8y ago

"open source" is just two words. "open" and "source", the latter being short for source code. I hate to break it to you, but language does not work by having people sign statements to declare that you think certain words can only be used in certain contexts that you think are worthy of your cause. The people signing such statements are wasting their time. Their signature does not, and cannot prevent people from using "open" and "source" together, to mean something where the source code is open for inspection, if it doesn't quite fit their over-engineered definition. "open source" and "OSI approved" are simply not synonymous and hopeful wishing will never make it so.

rmmm 8y ago
Bourbon is just a just a name. Champagne is just a region. But whiskeys and wines have to fit narrow qualifications to be Champagne sparkling wine, or Bourbon whiskey. You can, of course, call any software you want open source regardless if it fits the OSI definition, just like you can call any sparkling wine you want Champagne. It doesn't mean you'd be correct in doing so.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > But whiskeys and wines have to fit narrow qualifications to be Champagne sparkling wine, or Bourbon whiskey. Isn't that because there's laws and treaties enforcing that? For example the US isn't a signatory to any treaties about Champagne so you do get American wine labelled as Champagne in American shops I believe. There's no law enforcing the OSI's definition of 'open source'.
  - rmmm 8y ago
    I wasn't referring to legality, only replying to the idea that "open" and "source" are "just two words". For an example closer to the subject at hand, the Free Software Foundation makes it clear what does and what does not fit the Free Software definition and that does not rely on the force of law.
    - colechristensen 8y ago
      No, the OSI is acting like it has legal rights to tell people how to use the phrase as much as is possible without actually saying they own the term. This is the problem. They aren't sharing opinions but giving orders.
      - rmmm 8y ago
        Where in the article does the OSI mention or hint at anything about threat of law? The OSI does have the legal right to tell you what they think Open Source is. You have the legal right to ignore it. All OSI did is say "here is our definition of Open Source, and these are the people that agree with us, and you should agree with us too."
  - geofft 8y ago
    The laws and treaties exist because people believe words to have specific meanings, not the other way around. "Bourbon" and "champagne" meant something concrete before there were laws about what could be sold as bourbon and champagne.
- exolymph 8y ago
  Those are just protectionist legalities.
rangerpolitic 8y ago
Like all symbols (e.g., statues, logos, sounds, buildings, etc.), there is no innate meaning for words. We are completely free to attach any arbitrary meaning to a word and use it to convey that meaning. That doesn't mean it is without problems and that's the case with open source. The existing community in which open source is used largely understands "open" to refer to freedom in the broadest means possible. That's the word's denotative sense. It also carries a strong connotative sense in which it is viewed as a positive for business and society. What's happening is that you have a small group of people who desire to benefit from the connotative sense of the word while changing denotative sense. That creates problems when they're not clear that they don't mean open source in the same way that it's understand commonly amongst the technical community. It's underhanded and dishonest. If they want to create a quasi-open source license, that's fine. They simply should be very clear that it's not open source in the traditional/common sense.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  Common meaning behind open source is not actually OSI approved open source and never was by the way. OSI, for example, rejects public domain, while for pretty much everyone else public domain is open source. Broad freedom is even trickier to talk about. FSF, for example, built an entire ideology on the meaning of freedom.
  - rangerpolitic 8y ago
    Not sure how any of this would contradict anything I've mentioned. Perhaps you don't mean it to do so? If you do, you'll have to explain more because I'm not really following.
  - type0 8y ago
    Public domain isn't open source, that concept doesn't exist in every country.
- sparkie 8y ago
  Copyleft licenses are not necessarily "free in the broadest sense possible." They place certain restrictions on what you must do with software you publish which contains code licensed under such licenses. There are several such copyleft licenses approved by the OSI which clearly do not fit your all-encompassing freedom definition. You also have approved license which place restrictions on use of branding and trademarks, and no effort is made by OSI to restrict licenses to those which also include a patent grant. So if someone creates another kind of copyleft license, which is not quite the same as say, the GPL, but has the same spirit of the GPL, including a patent grant, then are they not allowed to use the term "open source" or "free software" because a protectionist organization declares itself the arbiter?

apexal 8y ago

I'm proud to see an organization I'm active in, the Rensselaer Center for Open Source, on this list! Just last week a representative from the OSI came to my university (RPI) to talk about what it means to be OSI affiliate members.

chrisseaton 8y ago

Isn't this what trademarks are for? If they want to enforce what the meaning of a term is in a a given domain they could come up with a new term and trademark it.

sparkie 8y ago
Yes, but open source was already used before the OSI came about. I don't think anyone knows exactly who coined it and when. OSI is trademarked, and they are in their rights to defend that trademark, but that obviously does not extend to "open source." This statement is an attempted protectionist power grab to assert control over the term and prevent competing initiatives from using it.
- rmmm 8y ago
  It's pretty well known who coined open source and why. It's also known shortly thereafter OSI started protecting the definition. https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source-software https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source... https://opensource.org/history https://opensource.org/history
- tzs 8y ago
  It may have been used before they did in the context of computer software, but if so such usage seems to have been very sparse. I tried to research it once, a long time ago, and my recollection is that I found maybe one or two possible examples on Usenet but nothing else.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > It may have been used before they did in the context of computer software I'm pretty sure the use in intelligence jargon long predates the software use. But that's disambiguated easily by context, it's not really a conflicting use.
wmf 8y ago
The term "open source" is not a trademark and at this point it probably cannot be trademarked by anyone. In uncontroversial cases people are happy to let the OSI be the arbiter of open sourceness but in controversial cases people tend to decide that OSI doesn't control the meaning of open source.

colechristensen 8y ago

Definitions don't belong to committees. "open source" isn't a trademarked or otherwise protected phrase, it does not belong to the OSI, it is not synonymous with (has an)"open source initiative Approved License". Coining a term or being among the first to use it does not mean that term belongs to you. There are many people that disagree with the OSI about what "open source" means, and that is what it takes for a definition. There is a certain irony in the OSI talking about open source like they own it.

rangerpolitic 8y ago
> Coining a term or being among the first to use it does not mean that term belongs to you. I wish that people would understand this not only in the context of definitions but also in the context of culture. Neither definitions nor culture belong to anyone. At the same time, they "belong" to everyone.
colechristensen 8y ago
Self-replying to nail down what I strongly disagree with: >Can I call my program "Open Source" even if I don't use an approved license? >Please don't do that. If you call it "Open Source" without using an approved license, you will confuse people. This is not merely a theoretical concern — we have seen this confusion happen in the past, and it's part of the reason we have a formal license approval process. See also our page on license proliferation for why this is a problem. This is from their FAQ and an example of the OSI explicitly acting like they own "open source". I am fine with proprietary terms being owned and controlled, for example "USB". I am not fine with organizations trying to usurp the language to try to push forward their agenda regardless of their intentions (and generally I approve of the mission of OSI)
- LamaOfRuin 8y ago
  They're not usurping it. They literally created it as a term (and "brand") rather than simply two words. They weren't granted a trademark, so their creation of it has no legal weight, but that doesn't mean they can't claim authority over what it means, and ask that their original intent be respected.

henryfjordan 8y ago

> Without this single, standard definition of "open source," software development as we know it would not be possible. There is no trust in a world where anyone can invent their own definition for open source, and without trust there is no community, no collaboration, and no innovation. Are they saying I can't trust what I read in the license files of a project? This is beyond hubris...

Iolaum 8y ago
The problem is when the readme file (or other marketing speak) says open source, so people think it's something that gives them the rights that OSI approved licences give, and then the license file says something else. For example, MongoDb's SSPL v1 or licenses with the commons clause. People are free to use whatever license they want. They should own up to it though instead of trying to paint their license as something else.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
kklimonda 8y ago
Reading through new licenses, and getting them approved by your legal departament isn't fun to anyone, plus some licenses are very subtly non-free - see the JSON license with its "do no evil" clause as an example.
mithr 8y ago
> Are they saying I can't trust what I read in the license files of a project? That's not quite what they're saying. They're asking what's stopping anyone from claiming their project is "open source", but actually meaning something most people won't recognize as such -- for example, "my project is open source because its source code is public. But if you want to legally do anything with it other than look, you have to pay me." If there isn't a standardized definition, someone can claim the above, and all you could really argue is that their definition of "open source" is different from yours (and they'll probably ask "who made you the arbiter of what's open and what's not?"). Once there is a standardized definition, the position instead becomes "your definition doesn't meet the international standard", which is a much weightier argument. As for hubris -- in much the same way that even with an international definition for something like a kilogram, nothing stops you from creating your own, different measurement, and claiming you're selling stuff "by your own measure of kilogram" to whoever will buy it, there will never be anything stopping you from creating your own definition of "open source" and carefully defining it in a license file. It's just that if that definition differs from the standardized one, developers will either have to carefully read your license (or have their lawyers do that), or choose to use a project with a standard license that's already been vetted a thousand times over.

kazinator 8y ago

"Open source" is just English words you can look up in a dictionary; it can mean any number of things. If we disconnect one end of a field effect transistor, the one opposite to the "drain", we have an "open source".

mindcrime 8y ago
If we disconnect one end of a field effect transistor, the one opposite to the "drain", we have an "open source". True, but totally irrelevant here. Context matters.
- kazinator 8y ago
  > Context matters. That's actually the point. In the context of software source code, "open source" still doesn't mean whatever these guys say it means. Only in the very narrow context of their specific organization and affiliates.
  - mindcrime 8y ago
    Only in the very narrow context of their specific organization and affiliates. That's not even close to true. There's a small niche group of people who don't acknowledge / accept that the OSD is, in every meaningful sense, the definition of Open Source.
    - kazinator 8y ago
      Most people who use "open source" in reference to software have never heard of OSI or its OSD, and could not recite its detailed points. Their understanding might not be in conflict with the OSD, but it's not in precise conformance with it. For instance, oh, "The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. " Most people, including developers, don't know what a "patch file" is, so how can this be part of their definition when they use the term "open source". Here are much more authoritative definitions, which are far briefer than the OSD's seven points: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/open-source https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/open-source https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open-source https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open-source (Both would have us hyphenate the term.)

mindcrime 8y ago

Count us (Fogbeam Labs) in! The OSD is the de facto definition of Open Source, and we're proud to back the OSI on this.

porpoisely 8y ago

A noble effort, but futile in my opinion. Trying to get the tech world to agree on something is like trying to herd cats. It's not going to work. What's to prevent another organization(s) from "forking" their own definition of open source. And good luck trying to get the differing major license camps ( MIT, GNU, etc ) to agree on anything.

kklimonda 8y ago

So this is yet another comments thread where I see numerous people not agreeing with OSI definition of "Open Source" and it got me wondering again, has there always been such a sentiment, or is it a recent one? I don't recall seeing it as much even a couple of years ago. Has there been some anti-OSI movement, and if so is there somewhere I could read about arguments against OSI? It seems most comments seem to be boiling down to "you are not going to tell me what I can do" but that's perhaps unfair.

LamaOfRuin 8y ago
It's not new. OSI was spawned as a more business friendly reaction to the "moralizing" of Richard Stallman and other "Free Software" believers. There will always be argument over definitional identities, especially of basically philosophical movements.
massonpj 8y ago
As mentioned elsewhere, the original debates around "open source", as both a term and movement, centered around "free" vs. "open", or the value, benefits, ethics, etc. of copyleft/reciprocal licenses vs. permissive licensing. Interestingly, while there is no trademark protection (i.e. ownership) of the term "free software", the founders of the OSI, recognized and honored that label's definition as described by RMS, GNU, and FSF--as well as their authority as stewards--and created another label, "open source software". There are many, many contemporaneous documents that reflect this debate. Today, I believe those issues have been resolved (i.e. clearly understood), with both the free software and open source communities agreeing that both labels and communities support software freedom: to study, use, modify, and redistribute. I personally feel, and in my experience as General Manager at the OSI, there is an increase of people/organizations raising issues over the open source label, it's definition, and the OSI's role as steward. My sense is, as open source software and communities that create it--both non-profit foundations and businesses--realize the benefits of collaborative co-creation, and see greater success, more people/organizations are enticed. You can see this in other "open" initiatives like "Open Content", "Open Source Hardware", "Open Data", "Open Educational Resources", etc. Clearly there is value in communities of practice collaborating around shared interests, and indeed these communities can operate in a variety of ways to generate artifacts defined by those communities, e.g. what is "open content"? As a corollary, success has raised the profile of open source projects and developers, so there are simply more discussions happening now across more communities. When free and open source software was less popular (with the debate focused on, how can this be good if it is developed by non-professionals, is unsecured, poor quality, etc.), there simply may have been fewer discussions. Now that "open source has won", many may be debating what about open source makes it a winner, and thus, what is open source.