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Different people have different meanings for "open". Right now there seems to be something of a crisis of terminology, where "open source" originally just meant

Different people have different meanings for "open". Right now there seems to be something of a crisis of terminology, where "open source" originally just meant "the source is available". The the OSI stepped in and gave it a specific definition with the OSD, but some people still continue to use it in the original "source is available"-way, whereas others use it only to mean OSD-compatible or OSI-approved. I'm not sure if inventing more terms will be successful or useful, so the only way forward I see is to relax and assume good intent from everyone, use "OSI-approved" or "compatible with OSD", and "open source" as a very broad umbrella term for anything where the source is available. This is already how many people use the term, especially those not intimately familiar with software dev/open source. I've never seen a single instance where telling people that "you're technically using that commonly used term wrong" is successful.

JoshTriplett 7y ago
People also misuse the term "public domain" to refer to a wide variety of things that mostly amount to "I found it somewhere and I want to use it". That doesn't make it correct. There's a difference between an unintentional mistake of loose terminology, and someone intentionally trying to create confusion and FUD for their own benefit. In the former case, I've run into multiple people who did appreciate learning what "open source" actually means. (I'm in a position of providing mentorship on a variety of topics, including on FOSS.) In the latter case, anyone trying to misleadingly brand their software as open while using a license that isn't actually open needs a strong response; the companies engaging in such misleading practices are unlikely to listen to that response themselves, but many of their customers and potential users will listen, and steer clear. We don't need to invent new terms. We have terms. We need to discourage misuse of the terms we have. If (hypothetically) we invented a new term and that term caught on, then people would try to abuse that term. There's an incentive to latch onto the popular terminology while attempting to work around its requirements; there needs to be a strong disincentive to doing so, as well.
- kemitchell 7y ago
  When a large number of people use a word to mean something, that's what the word means. My definition of "public domain" doesn't trump their definition, just because I'm a lawyer or a programmer or somehow more specific. Neither does James Boyle's or Larry Lessig's. The first group to latch onto "open source" was OSI. "Open" had been a buzzword in computing for a whole generation before. The media didn't eat up ESR's line because OSI had a definition or a license list. Initially, it had neither. The media ate it up because of the software, which hadn't been called by that name before. Nobody's abusing anything here but OSI's sense of entitlement. Comment above is right: there's no exclusive right to the term.
cxr 7y ago
The central thesis of your comment, which also mirrors an oblique side remark from the article, is a total fabrication. OSI did not commandeer the phrase "open source". OSI coined "open source".
- paulddraper 7y ago
  But the English language already had definitions for "open" and "source". English-speakers combining those two to produce the intuitive way ("you can see the source code") gives us our present situation.
  - cxr 7y ago
    Regardless of how valid anyone sees your "but", it's not the extent of claim made in the comment I replied to. Both the comment and the article make a very specific claim about the term "open source": the (frequently encountered) falsehood that the term "open source" preceded OSI, and that the OSI made it their prerogative to wrench it from the mouths (keyboards) of programmers so as to suit the OSI's desires. Not only is that not true, it doesn't seem to be accompanied by any appreciation of the irony involved here, considering that the exact opposite thing is what's actually going on—by the folks who are complaining about retconning language!
    - kemitchell 7y ago
      "Open" was a high-froth marketing term in computing long before OSI came around. "Open source" itself was and is commonly used in intelligence. Christine Patterson, who proposed "open source" at the freeware summit, has written that she mentioned it to a friend in marketing at the time, and the friend advised against. "Open" was too played out, meant everything and nothing.
      - cxr 7y ago
        This sounds like a retort to OSI's "open source", but it isn't. It contradicts nothing and does much less to support the "other" side than it seems to. How many times are the goalposts going to move in this conversation? > Christine Patterson Peterson.

JoshTriplett 7y ago

People also misuse the term "public domain" to refer to a wide variety of things that mostly amount to "I found it somewhere and I want to use it". That doesn't make it correct. There's a difference between an unintentional mistake of loose terminology, and someone intentionally trying to create confusion and FUD for their own benefit. In the former case, I've run into multiple people who did appreciate learning what "open source" actually means. (I'm in a position of providing mentorship on a variety of topics, including on FOSS.) In the latter case, anyone trying to misleadingly brand their software as open while using a license that isn't actually open needs a strong response; the companies engaging in such misleading practices are unlikely to listen to that response themselves, but many of their customers and potential users will listen, and steer clear. We don't need to invent new terms. We have terms. We need to discourage misuse of the terms we have. If (hypothetically) we invented a new term and that term caught on, then people would try to abuse that term. There's an incentive to latch onto the popular terminology while attempting to work around its requirements; there needs to be a strong disincentive to doing so, as well.

kemitchell 7y ago
When a large number of people use a word to mean something, that's what the word means. My definition of "public domain" doesn't trump their definition, just because I'm a lawyer or a programmer or somehow more specific. Neither does James Boyle's or Larry Lessig's. The first group to latch onto "open source" was OSI. "Open" had been a buzzword in computing for a whole generation before. The media didn't eat up ESR's line because OSI had a definition or a license list. Initially, it had neither. The media ate it up because of the software, which hadn't been called by that name before. Nobody's abusing anything here but OSI's sense of entitlement. Comment above is right: there's no exclusive right to the term.

cxr 7y ago

The central thesis of your comment, which also mirrors an oblique side remark from the article, is a total fabrication. OSI did not commandeer the phrase "open source". OSI coined "open source".

paulddraper 7y ago
But the English language already had definitions for "open" and "source". English-speakers combining those two to produce the intuitive way ("you can see the source code") gives us our present situation.
- cxr 7y ago
  Regardless of how valid anyone sees your "but", it's not the extent of claim made in the comment I replied to. Both the comment and the article make a very specific claim about the term "open source": the (frequently encountered) falsehood that the term "open source" preceded OSI, and that the OSI made it their prerogative to wrench it from the mouths (keyboards) of programmers so as to suit the OSI's desires. Not only is that not true, it doesn't seem to be accompanied by any appreciation of the irony involved here, considering that the exact opposite thing is what's actually going on—by the folks who are complaining about retconning language!
  - kemitchell 7y ago
    "Open" was a high-froth marketing term in computing long before OSI came around. "Open source" itself was and is commonly used in intelligence. Christine Patterson, who proposed "open source" at the freeware summit, has written that she mentioned it to a friend in marketing at the time, and the friend advised against. "Open" was too played out, meant everything and nothing.
    - cxr 7y ago
      This sounds like a retort to OSI's "open source", but it isn't. It contradicts nothing and does much less to support the "other" side than it seems to. How many times are the goalposts going to move in this conversation? > Christine Patterson Peterson.