4 ms·

A term with no agreed meaning has limited utility. We have an official definition. I don't understand how the community benefits from making the definition mo

A term with no agreed meaning has limited utility. We have an official definition. I don't understand how the community benefits from making the definition more ambiguous and murky. Is there a group that's heavily invested conflating open source with source-available? I just don't understand who wins in that scenario.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> We have an official definition. Lol how is it 'official'? Who officiated it?
- rpdillon 5y ago
  You can read the history of the term Open Source here: https://opensource.org/history https://opensource.org/history The folks who coined the term were among those that led the OSI. > The “open source” label was created at a strategy session held on February 3rd, 1998 in Palo Alto, California, shortly after the announcement of the release of the Netscape source code. The strategy session grew from a realization that the attention around the Netscape announcement had created an opportunity to educate and advocate for the superiority of an open development process. > Two of those present at the Palo Alto meeting (Eric Raymond and Michael Tiemann) would later serve as presidents of OSI, and other attendees (including Todd Andersen, Jon “maddog” Hall, Larry Augustin, and Sam Ockman) became key early supporters of the organization. These folks went on to create the Open Source Definition: https://opensource.org/docs/osd https://opensource.org/docs/osd The folks who created the term started an organization named after the term, created an official definition, and registered the domain. If that's not enough for us to have an official definition, what does it take? And what do we gain by arguing about this? Reading your posts in this thread (and elsewhere), my impression is that you're invested in insisting that "open source" doesn't have that definition, but I can't figure out what your motivation is. FWIW, my motivation is to create an environment where terms have precise meaning so we can discuss complex issues (like copyright, licensing, development models, etc.) effectively. If we're wrangling over terms and language all the time, communication becomes much more difficult.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > The “open source” label was created at a strategy session held on February 3rd, 1998 You can see the term gaining popularity prior to 3 Feb 1998, and there are references to for example BSD being 'open source' as far back as 1990. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source%2Copen-source%2Cfree+software&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1970&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Copen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BOpen%20Source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bopen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOpen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Copen%20-%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bopen%20-%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOpen%20-%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOpen%20-%20Source%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cfree%20software%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bfree%20software%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BFree%20Software%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BFree%20software%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BFREE%20SOFTWARE%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source%2C... Via https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html.
    - rpdillon 5y ago
      BSD fits the modern open source definition. Martin's article pleads with readers not to be pedantic when using the term, but offers no alternative definition, beyond 'let people use it when they can read source code'. Perhaps that's the proposed usage you and Martin prefer? If I'm understanding your position correctly, perhaps you would agree that Ocarina of Time has now been released as open source? https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/11/reverse-engineering-team-completes-its-ocarina-of-time-decompilation/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/11/reverse-engineering-t... If so, the term is uselessly vague, as it says nothing about the rights of the licensee. In this sense, 'Free Software' has much more meaning...perhaps RMS was onto something!
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        > offers no alternative definition If the OSI picked a term that wasn't simply descriptive they could trademark it, then they could enforce their definition and there would be no ambiguity. That would be better for everyone.
        5y ago

chrisseaton 5y ago

> We have an official definition. Lol how is it 'official'? Who officiated it?

rpdillon 5y ago
You can read the history of the term Open Source here: https://opensource.org/history https://opensource.org/history The folks who coined the term were among those that led the OSI. > The “open source” label was created at a strategy session held on February 3rd, 1998 in Palo Alto, California, shortly after the announcement of the release of the Netscape source code. The strategy session grew from a realization that the attention around the Netscape announcement had created an opportunity to educate and advocate for the superiority of an open development process. > Two of those present at the Palo Alto meeting (Eric Raymond and Michael Tiemann) would later serve as presidents of OSI, and other attendees (including Todd Andersen, Jon “maddog” Hall, Larry Augustin, and Sam Ockman) became key early supporters of the organization. These folks went on to create the Open Source Definition: https://opensource.org/docs/osd https://opensource.org/docs/osd The folks who created the term started an organization named after the term, created an official definition, and registered the domain. If that's not enough for us to have an official definition, what does it take? And what do we gain by arguing about this? Reading your posts in this thread (and elsewhere), my impression is that you're invested in insisting that "open source" doesn't have that definition, but I can't figure out what your motivation is. FWIW, my motivation is to create an environment where terms have precise meaning so we can discuss complex issues (like copyright, licensing, development models, etc.) effectively. If we're wrangling over terms and language all the time, communication becomes much more difficult.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > The “open source” label was created at a strategy session held on February 3rd, 1998 You can see the term gaining popularity prior to 3 Feb 1998, and there are references to for example BSD being 'open source' as far back as 1990. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source%2Copen-source%2Cfree+software&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1970&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Copen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BOpen%20Source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bopen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOpen%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Copen%20-%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bopen%20-%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOpen%20-%20source%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOpen%20-%20Source%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cfree%20software%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bfree%20software%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BFree%20Software%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BFree%20software%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BFREE%20SOFTWARE%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=open+source%2C... Via https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html.
  - rpdillon 5y ago
    BSD fits the modern open source definition. Martin's article pleads with readers not to be pedantic when using the term, but offers no alternative definition, beyond 'let people use it when they can read source code'. Perhaps that's the proposed usage you and Martin prefer? If I'm understanding your position correctly, perhaps you would agree that Ocarina of Time has now been released as open source? https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/11/reverse-engineering-team-completes-its-ocarina-of-time-decompilation/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/11/reverse-engineering-t... If so, the term is uselessly vague, as it says nothing about the rights of the licensee. In this sense, 'Free Software' has much more meaning...perhaps RMS was onto something!
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > offers no alternative definition If the OSI picked a term that wasn't simply descriptive they could trademark it, then they could enforce their definition and there would be no ambiguity. That would be better for everyone.
      - 5y ago