3 ms·

No. Please read my link above. This is thing #2 in my link above. Christine Petersen coined the term. OSI was then formed under this term. There is an unrelate

by jordigh 12y ago

No. Please read my link above. This is thing #2 in my link above. Christine Petersen coined the term. OSI was then formed under this term. There is an unrelated "open source intelligence" older term, about how to spy on people using publicly-available sources, but nobody called software "open source" before OSI. Eric Raymond confirms as much: http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
In the abstract of the same text by Raymond, http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral...: >"By mid-1996 I thought I was beginning to understand. Chance handed me a perfect way to test my theory, in the form of an open-source project that I could consciously try to run in the bazaar style. So I did—and it was a significant success." // OSI started in 1998 yet here is Raymond saying he did an open-source project in 1996. Not only that be he was copying an established style of software authorship which was already open source. Whilst the wording may not have been widely used, perhaps not at all, until 1998 open source was already a thing. OSI tried to create a tightly defined word but they created usage of the term to cover what was - as we see above - already a thing. The thing that existed didn't and doesn't fit neatly in to the OSD and nor should it. Usages change as well but here I think those who [it seems] coined the term and set it free used it in a different way to some of the community from the start. It would be interesting to do a survey of the HN crowd to see what they consider the term "open source" to mean.
- jordigh 12y ago
  You are of course open source software existed for a long time before it was called that, way back to the early 1960's. People called it free software for a long time. And not just Stallman called it that, even the BSDs did and still do, despite hating RMS and all he stands for (GNU, GPL...) ESR edits his texts a lot, and CATB came out before 1998. I don't know if I can track down a first edition of CATB and see what term ESR used here, but I bet it wasn't "open source". Note how he hyphenates it, according to his recommendation in the thing I linked.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    I cut-pasted and reused his hyphenation, I noted it well. He uses "open-source software" and just "open source". Did I err in this regard? That aside, it doesn't matter if he wrote the line last week about making an open source project in 1996, it's recognition that open source per se (as opposed to the name) started prior to OSI and their OSD. It was an established thing that they tried to straight-jacket in to a particular definition.
    - jordigh 12y ago
      I was pointing out his hyphenation to point out how it's something that nobody does, just like almost nobody writes e-mail anymore instead of email. The term seemed new at the time, so esr thought he needed special recommendations on how to use it. And yes, I agree again with you, open source existed for a long time before OSI. It was and is called free software. All that OSI attempted to do was provide a more business-friendly synonym for free software, but their message seems to have gotten distorted, and people seem to think that open source is something different from free software. It was never meant to be different.

by jordigh 12y ago

pbhjpbhj 12y ago

In the abstract of the same text by Raymond, http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral...: >"By mid-1996 I thought I was beginning to understand. Chance handed me a perfect way to test my theory, in the form of an open-source project that I could consciously try to run in the bazaar style. So I did—and it was a significant success." // OSI started in 1998 yet here is Raymond saying he did an open-source project in 1996. Not only that be he was copying an established style of software authorship which was already open source. Whilst the wording may not have been widely used, perhaps not at all, until 1998 open source was already a thing. OSI tried to create a tightly defined word but they created usage of the term to cover what was - as we see above - already a thing. The thing that existed didn't and doesn't fit neatly in to the OSD and nor should it. Usages change as well but here I think those who [it seems] coined the term and set it free used it in a different way to some of the community from the start. It would be interesting to do a survey of the HN crowd to see what they consider the term "open source" to mean.

jordigh 12y ago
You are of course open source software existed for a long time before it was called that, way back to the early 1960's. People called it free software for a long time. And not just Stallman called it that, even the BSDs did and still do, despite hating RMS and all he stands for (GNU, GPL...) ESR edits his texts a lot, and CATB came out before 1998. I don't know if I can track down a first edition of CATB and see what term ESR used here, but I bet it wasn't "open source". Note how he hyphenates it, according to his recommendation in the thing I linked.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  I cut-pasted and reused his hyphenation, I noted it well. He uses "open-source software" and just "open source". Did I err in this regard? That aside, it doesn't matter if he wrote the line last week about making an open source project in 1996, it's recognition that open source per se (as opposed to the name) started prior to OSI and their OSD. It was an established thing that they tried to straight-jacket in to a particular definition.
  - jordigh 12y ago
    I was pointing out his hyphenation to point out how it's something that nobody does, just like almost nobody writes e-mail anymore instead of email. The term seemed new at the time, so esr thought he needed special recommendations on how to use it. And yes, I agree again with you, open source existed for a long time before OSI. It was and is called free software. All that OSI attempted to do was provide a more business-friendly synonym for free software, but their message seems to have gotten distorted, and people seem to think that open source is something different from free software. It was never meant to be different.