4 ms·

The free software movement is for sure older than that but I can't find any verifiable source of "open source" being used in its current form earlier than the 9

by Spivak 3y ago

The free software movement is for sure older than that but I can't find any verifiable source of "open source" being used in its current form earlier than the 90's.

Retric 3y ago
The term still predates OSI, but more importantly than the name than what was going on. The specific transition from sharing as public-domain software vs free, open, shared, and permissivly licenced software dates to ~1953 with A-2 being provided for free and requesting updates be sent back to UNIVAC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-0_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-0_System Others might point to IBM SHARE from 1955 as being closer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHARE_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHARE_(computing) Followed by many similar arrangements before the term open source was coined with OSI only showing up much later.
outop 3y ago
No, because it's a name that was made up then to try to rebrand something that had already existed for decades, but which has a name that those guys didn't like.
- doctor_eval 3y ago
  My memory from the time was that the OSI was mostly about trying to characterise the various licenses that were floating around, and about legitimising the use of freeish software in industry. Today the majority of free software that I use seems to be Apache/BSD/MIT - and GPL for Linux - but back in the 90s everyone seemed to make up their own “free” license, and there was a lot of confusion around GPL. My recollection is that OSI was trying to create some clarity around which licenses really were “free”, and which weren’t. I was just a passive observer, I was not involved in any way, I wasn’t a fan of some of the players, and I even thought calling it OSI was pretentious - but nevertheless they made a dent in the universe by popularising the term “open source”. OSI was far more than a rebranding because it enabled us to speak about GPL - which imposes conditions on use - and free licenses like BSD in the same breath, while excluding what we now call “source available” licenses. So despite my misgivings, I think the OSI deserves credit. They stood up and did something meaningful, and helped move the entire software industry forward. Because of this, I think calling it a rebranding is totally unjustified and unfair.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - outop 3y ago
    GPL does not impose conditions on use.
    - doctor_eval 3y ago
      Sure it does. If you modify GPL code, you have to give your changes back in some circumstances. If you modify it and don’t give your changes back, you can be sued.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]

by Spivak 3y ago

The free software movement is for sure older than that but I can't find any verifiable source of "open source" being used in its current form earlier than the 90's.

Retric 3y ago

The term still predates OSI, but more importantly than the name than what was going on. The specific transition from sharing as public-domain software vs free, open, shared, and permissivly licenced software dates to ~1953 with A-2 being provided for free and requesting updates be sent back to UNIVAC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-0_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-0_System Others might point to IBM SHARE from 1955 as being closer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHARE_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHARE_(computing) Followed by many similar arrangements before the term open source was coined with OSI only showing up much later.

outop 3y ago

No, because it's a name that was made up then to try to rebrand something that had already existed for decades, but which has a name that those guys didn't like.

doctor_eval 3y ago
My memory from the time was that the OSI was mostly about trying to characterise the various licenses that were floating around, and about legitimising the use of freeish software in industry. Today the majority of free software that I use seems to be Apache/BSD/MIT - and GPL for Linux - but back in the 90s everyone seemed to make up their own “free” license, and there was a lot of confusion around GPL. My recollection is that OSI was trying to create some clarity around which licenses really were “free”, and which weren’t. I was just a passive observer, I was not involved in any way, I wasn’t a fan of some of the players, and I even thought calling it OSI was pretentious - but nevertheless they made a dent in the universe by popularising the term “open source”. OSI was far more than a rebranding because it enabled us to speak about GPL - which imposes conditions on use - and free licenses like BSD in the same breath, while excluding what we now call “source available” licenses. So despite my misgivings, I think the OSI deserves credit. They stood up and did something meaningful, and helped move the entire software industry forward. Because of this, I think calling it a rebranding is totally unjustified and unfair.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- outop 3y ago
  GPL does not impose conditions on use.
  - doctor_eval 3y ago
    Sure it does. If you modify GPL code, you have to give your changes back in some circumstances. If you modify it and don’t give your changes back, you can be sued.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]