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But fortunately, the overall community including the vast majority of people involved in packaging and distributing Open Source software agree with them, and in
by danShumway 6y ago
But fortunately, the overall community including the vast majority of people involved in packaging and distributing Open Source software agree with them, and in a lot of ways they do own the term and they do get to tell people what they can do with it.
You can go argue with every major Linux distro, the Homebrew devs, package managers, and most key Open Source advocates if you want. Get them to change their definitions and the software they accept, and then maybe you'll have a point.
But in the meantime, you shouldn't be surprised when the community lashes out at you for appropriating decades of PR and public education just because you don't like that the definition we've always used to describe ourselves doesn't fit a particular business model. OSI/GNU have authority on this subject because we the community grant them authority. We're not interested in people coming in and leeching off the goodwill of Open Source while simultaneously restricting users' rights.
We are as a community guarding our terminology because our terms have value, and OSI is the standardized, commonly understood definition that we have advocated for. If you want to call that gatekeeping, I don't care. I don't want Open Source to be like the "organic" aisle at the grocery store, I want it to mean something specific.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chrisseaton 6y agoI just think if they'd picked an original term and trademarked it, the whole thing would be simpler. It could be Open Source (tm) and they could enforce it, rather than relying on 'lashing out' as you say.
- danShumway 6y agoOkay fine. And your solution to that is to repeat the exact same mistake by trying to fight over the same term? On some level, you have to know that the phrase Open Source has value. That's why companies want to use it. That's why they're arguing over broadening the definition and calling the OSI a gatekeeper. They want to be able to use that phrase because it has positive connotations. It's not a linguistic debate, it's a debate over being able to imply that some software is Free even when it's not. If you think that the OSI made a mistake by picking an existing phrase, that's a totally valid criticism you can have, but as a community we're still not going to let you redefine the phrase. We've invested in this. Take your own advice and come up with a new word for these new licenses.
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoThis topic has turned up recently on HN. [0][1] Your position here matches my own: open source is a precise term of art in the software community, the way flap is a precise term of art in aviation. [1] Trademarks are not especially relevant, and neither is the early history of the term. To put it in legalistic terms: you can face legal consequences for false advertising despite making no use of trademarked language. The court will not be interested in the etymology of the words you used, that's an academic matter, it's the modern meaning that counts. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25366825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25366825 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25834342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25834342
- type0 6y agoDoesn't matter though, I will still call a spade - "spade". You can keep calling a shovel - "spade", just don't be surprised that no one understands what you mean.