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I don't like that OSI seems to somehow come away with this (at least as framed here) with control of the term. I agree just calling whatever nonsense open-sourc

I don't like that OSI seems to somehow come away with this (at least as framed here) with control of the term. I agree just calling whatever nonsense open-source is problematic, but I don't agree it has to be one of their licenses to be open source at all.

hn_version_0023 5y ago
That part seemed like their own spin on the decision, to me. I agree with you: they shouldn’t control the term.
- busterarm 5y ago
  They determined the guidelines of what constitutes being Open Source. Absolutely they should control the term. Just look at all of the companies out there with "source-available" licenses masquerading as Open Source. Neo4j themselves here uses "Open Source" in all of their marketing materials and should be just as guilty as this fork of false advertising.
  - phendrenad2 5y ago
    OSI doesn't need to control what licenses qualify as "open source" for neo4j to be sued for false advertising.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - hn_version_0023 5y ago
    Hard disagreement from me. The courts get to decide, not some random organization that clearly has an interest in promoting themselves.
    - prepend 5y ago
      OSI is not random and, while not perfect, are a pretty good steward of the concept. They’re a non-profit with a clear goal and broad membership. Not sure who else would be better.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    1. “Open source” as a term predates the OSI 2. There are organizations other than OSI which have their own opinions on what they consider a “valid” open source license. 3. Some licenses are functionally open source but not approved by OSI because of their limited use. Furthermore, public domain works aren’t licensed at all. 4. OSI has no trademark on “open source”. OSI’s opinion is only as good as other people agree with it.
    - prepend 5y ago
      > There are organizations other than OSI which have their own opinions on what they consider a “valid” open source license. What other organizations have credible claims? I’ve only heard of companies that have created non-open licenses and are trying to redefine the term (eg, open core, etc)
      - kube-system 5y ago
        The organizations that you think are credible, are credible. The term is not legally protected. Personally, when Subway calls their sandwiches "good", I think they are actually making non-good sandwiches, and they're trying to redefine the term. Both "good" and "open source" are descriptive terms that are subjective. The OSI recognizes this themselves: > "Open Source" is not and cannot become a trademark. > there is virtually no chance that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would register the mark "open source"; the mark is too descriptive https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.php https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p...
        prepend 5y ago
        > The organizations that you think are credible, are credible. The term is not legally protected. Credible to me, but I don’t get to decide what’s credible. We live in a society, etc etc. that’s why I asked. Subway can’t call the cold cut combo sandwich a fried chicken sandwich even though I think they are a credible organization. They would be wrong. If there’s some other org that is credible and is credible using open source, I’d like to know. Just like Subway would not be credible if they claimed their non-organic sandwich was organic. The examples I’m familiar with are companies trying to benefit from open source as a positive marketing term and I don’t think are credible.
- kabdib 5y ago
  I disagree with some of their requirements for open source licenses, and will continue to call the code that I have open sourced over the years as "open source" despite them. Their attempt to occupy the term is a little offensive. Correction: They came up with the name, so it's theirs. I'll leave my public embarrassment here.
  - busterarm 5y ago
    They occupy the term because they literally coined it, if you know your history.[1] OS came to us from the OSD, written by the OSI and after hot debate in the early days of what should and shouldn't be Free Software. It was specifically a reaction to the FSF and a rejection of that group's activism, which didn't fit what they were trying to do. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software (specifically the first section starting with End of the 90s)
    - kabdib 5y ago
      You are correct. I will retract my statement.
    - CogitoCogito 5y ago
      They didn’t coin the term: https://lunduke.substack.com/p/who-really-coined-the-term-open-source?s=r https://lunduke.substack.com/p/who-really-coined-the-term-op...
      - busterarm 5y ago
        From the perspective of popularizing and bringing it into mainstream usage, they surely did. Digging further is for extreme nitpickers. Gutenberg didn't "invent" the printing press either. Movable type dates back to 11th century China if you really want accurate attribution. Except for the purposes of the history of the modern world, Gutenberg's invention is most relevant/accurate. My internet usage started on university systems back in the 80s, along with BBS and usenet and I had never heard the term Open Source even once until 1998.
warp 5y ago
In practice I don't think it's just OSI which gets to decide this. Debian and Red Hat have their own teams determining whether something is Open Source enough to allow into their distributions, and obviously the Free Software Foundation keeps their own list of licenses which they consider Free Software. If these groups of people disagree on whether a particular license is Free/Open Source software, it's not going to be considered an Open Source license by everyone.
- busterarm 5y ago
  They have every right to dictate the meaning of the term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software Read the first section.
  - kazinator 5y ago
    They have the right to promote the term, under freedom of speech legislation. That's about it.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > They have every right to dictate the meaning of the term. I mean this is just factually not true. They have no such right. They tried to trademark it, but failed because it's just a generic term.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    They should have one, but they don't, so it allows parasitic companies to trade on the goodwill that the OSI built up. If you don't think that people who sell carbon-based foods should always be able to sell them as organic, or that any coffee buyer who thinks that they do business fairly should be able to label their product as Fair Trade, you shouldn't think companies that are open about their source code should be able to label themselves Open Source. I'm going to label my company Open Source because we're open about how we source the laptops we programmed the software on. They're MacBook Pros, and you're welcome.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
Yes and no. On the one hand, I agree that OSI seems like a fairly arbitrary entity and in the abstract I would agree that they shouldn't control it. On the other hand, 99 times out of 100 if someone is making that argument with reference to a specific license, it means they're trying to claim their software is open source when it isn't and just want to pretend that they can redefine the term themselves. So I tend to ignore my theoretical dislike and practically accept the OSI definition of OSS.
bachmeier 5y ago
I don't see it that way. It's the standard usage of the term in 2022. If you sell someone a red car but deliver a black car, you can't claim to have your own definition of red. I think it's important that this involves participants that are familiar with the industry. You might have a stronger argument if it were non-technical executives in the paper industry.
pavon 5y ago
I haven't read the trial court ruling, but the appeals court ruling doesn't support OSI controlling the term. Rather, since both the plaintiff and the defendant agreed that AGPL + Common Cause was not a free or open source license, the court simply accepted that, and didn't have to weigh in on the matter themselves. Edit: After reading the applicable sections of the trial court ruling, it is no different - the court simply accepted the plantiff and defendant's shared use of the term. It didn't reference OCI or FSF or any other authority.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
fluidcruft 5y ago
I recently started listening to an InfoSec podcast and there's an interesting conflict of terms going on in terms of journalist/hacker/analyst/researcher use of the term "open source". It seems like "Open Source" can be an answer to the question "What's your source on that information?" And "open source" means it's freely available public information vs say a private interview or information acquired with a warrant or wiretap or freedom of information request. Based on that use case and how careful journalists need to be about sources, I suspect journalists etc were using the term first. And I suspect Perens encountered it in that domain first and applied it to software. But I honestly have no idea. Open Source is a pretty dumb term. Free Software is also a dumb term for other reasons. It's a pity.

hn_version_0023 5y ago

That part seemed like their own spin on the decision, to me. I agree with you: they shouldn’t control the term.

busterarm 5y ago
They determined the guidelines of what constitutes being Open Source. Absolutely they should control the term. Just look at all of the companies out there with "source-available" licenses masquerading as Open Source. Neo4j themselves here uses "Open Source" in all of their marketing materials and should be just as guilty as this fork of false advertising.
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  OSI doesn't need to control what licenses qualify as "open source" for neo4j to be sued for false advertising.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hn_version_0023 5y ago
  Hard disagreement from me. The courts get to decide, not some random organization that clearly has an interest in promoting themselves.
  - prepend 5y ago
    OSI is not random and, while not perfect, are a pretty good steward of the concept. They’re a non-profit with a clear goal and broad membership. Not sure who else would be better.
- kube-system 5y ago
  1. “Open source” as a term predates the OSI 2. There are organizations other than OSI which have their own opinions on what they consider a “valid” open source license. 3. Some licenses are functionally open source but not approved by OSI because of their limited use. Furthermore, public domain works aren’t licensed at all. 4. OSI has no trademark on “open source”. OSI’s opinion is only as good as other people agree with it.
  - prepend 5y ago
    > There are organizations other than OSI which have their own opinions on what they consider a “valid” open source license. What other organizations have credible claims? I’ve only heard of companies that have created non-open licenses and are trying to redefine the term (eg, open core, etc)
    - kube-system 5y ago
      The organizations that you think are credible, are credible. The term is not legally protected. Personally, when Subway calls their sandwiches "good", I think they are actually making non-good sandwiches, and they're trying to redefine the term. Both "good" and "open source" are descriptive terms that are subjective. The OSI recognizes this themselves: > "Open Source" is not and cannot become a trademark. > there is virtually no chance that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would register the mark "open source"; the mark is too descriptive https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.php https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.p...
      - prepend 5y ago
        > The organizations that you think are credible, are credible. The term is not legally protected. Credible to me, but I don’t get to decide what’s credible. We live in a society, etc etc. that’s why I asked. Subway can’t call the cold cut combo sandwich a fried chicken sandwich even though I think they are a credible organization. They would be wrong. If there’s some other org that is credible and is credible using open source, I’d like to know. Just like Subway would not be credible if they claimed their non-organic sandwich was organic. The examples I’m familiar with are companies trying to benefit from open source as a positive marketing term and I don’t think are credible.
kabdib 5y ago
I disagree with some of their requirements for open source licenses, and will continue to call the code that I have open sourced over the years as "open source" despite them. Their attempt to occupy the term is a little offensive. Correction: They came up with the name, so it's theirs. I'll leave my public embarrassment here.
- busterarm 5y ago
  They occupy the term because they literally coined it, if you know your history.[1] OS came to us from the OSD, written by the OSI and after hot debate in the early days of what should and shouldn't be Free Software. It was specifically a reaction to the FSF and a rejection of that group's activism, which didn't fit what they were trying to do. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software (specifically the first section starting with End of the 90s)
  - kabdib 5y ago
    You are correct. I will retract my statement.
  - CogitoCogito 5y ago
    They didn’t coin the term: https://lunduke.substack.com/p/who-really-coined-the-term-open-source?s=r https://lunduke.substack.com/p/who-really-coined-the-term-op...
    - busterarm 5y ago
      From the perspective of popularizing and bringing it into mainstream usage, they surely did. Digging further is for extreme nitpickers. Gutenberg didn't "invent" the printing press either. Movable type dates back to 11th century China if you really want accurate attribution. Except for the purposes of the history of the modern world, Gutenberg's invention is most relevant/accurate. My internet usage started on university systems back in the 80s, along with BBS and usenet and I had never heard the term Open Source even once until 1998.

warp 5y ago

In practice I don't think it's just OSI which gets to decide this. Debian and Red Hat have their own teams determining whether something is Open Source enough to allow into their distributions, and obviously the Free Software Foundation keeps their own list of licenses which they consider Free Software. If these groups of people disagree on whether a particular license is Free/Open Source software, it's not going to be considered an Open Source license by everyone.

busterarm 5y ago
They have every right to dictate the meaning of the term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software Read the first section.
- kazinator 5y ago
  They have the right to promote the term, under freedom of speech legislation. That's about it.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > They have every right to dictate the meaning of the term. I mean this is just factually not true. They have no such right. They tried to trademark it, but failed because it's just a generic term.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- pessimizer 5y ago
  They should have one, but they don't, so it allows parasitic companies to trade on the goodwill that the OSI built up. If you don't think that people who sell carbon-based foods should always be able to sell them as organic, or that any coffee buyer who thinks that they do business fairly should be able to label their product as Fair Trade, you shouldn't think companies that are open about their source code should be able to label themselves Open Source. I'm going to label my company Open Source because we're open about how we source the laptops we programmed the software on. They're MacBook Pros, and you're welcome.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

Yes and no. On the one hand, I agree that OSI seems like a fairly arbitrary entity and in the abstract I would agree that they shouldn't control it. On the other hand, 99 times out of 100 if someone is making that argument with reference to a specific license, it means they're trying to claim their software is open source when it isn't and just want to pretend that they can redefine the term themselves. So I tend to ignore my theoretical dislike and practically accept the OSI definition of OSS.

bachmeier 5y ago

I don't see it that way. It's the standard usage of the term in 2022. If you sell someone a red car but deliver a black car, you can't claim to have your own definition of red. I think it's important that this involves participants that are familiar with the industry. You might have a stronger argument if it were non-technical executives in the paper industry.

pavon 5y ago

I haven't read the trial court ruling, but the appeals court ruling doesn't support OSI controlling the term. Rather, since both the plaintiff and the defendant agreed that AGPL + Common Cause was not a free or open source license, the court simply accepted that, and didn't have to weigh in on the matter themselves. Edit: After reading the applicable sections of the trial court ruling, it is no different - the court simply accepted the plantiff and defendant's shared use of the term. It didn't reference OCI or FSF or any other authority.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

fluidcruft 5y ago

I recently started listening to an InfoSec podcast and there's an interesting conflict of terms going on in terms of journalist/hacker/analyst/researcher use of the term "open source". It seems like "Open Source" can be an answer to the question "What's your source on that information?" And "open source" means it's freely available public information vs say a private interview or information acquired with a warrant or wiretap or freedom of information request. Based on that use case and how careful journalists need to be about sources, I suspect journalists etc were using the term first. And I suspect Perens encountered it in that domain first and applied it to software. But I honestly have no idea. Open Source is a pretty dumb term. Free Software is also a dumb term for other reasons. It's a pity.