Slashdot Mirror
OSI Launches Certification Program With Logo
Lao-Tzu writes "The Open Source Initiative has launched an OSI certification program. The OSI has trademarked a logo looking like a keyhole for their use as a graphical certification mark. Python.org is the first website to carry the new OSI logo." One might ask what took so long.
Don't mean to be a naysayer, but I'm not sure using Logo in a certification program is such a spiffy idea. How hard it is to move that turtle around, really? ;)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
...Certification program with Logo
Hey, I know logo, it's the language where you draw with a turtle. At last I can be a Certified IT worker!
Kilroy was here!
One might ask what took so long.
One might ask what it took so long for Slashdot to mention it - it's been on the Python home page for quite a while.
One might equally ask why it took you guys a whole month to note the launch of this certification mark...
Can't think of any genius reason why a person would need this when you can just sift through pages and pages of legalese to find out the same thing. I feel bad for these folks because they'll approve (or not, but either way they're eating their lives away studying (and debating) bleeping license legalese!) any license that's thrown at them.
Worse yet, licenses change and components can be closed sourced (right, Source Forge?) so I don't see much but big bad headaches for these folks in return for something that really doesn't add much to the community. So it goes.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
> A logo. Wow. You all kick ass.
As Phil Knight said (president of Nike), "People dont want shoes. They want the swoosh."
To make fun of a logo is wholesomely naive. The prominance of brand economics and logos in our economy is beyond anybody's measure. Heck, logos, official seals predate the 1500s. They give an organization a recognizable and terse symbol with which to endorse certain projects or people.
Sure, OSI isn't Nike (most notably and thankfully because they arnt looking to levereage the brand horizontally), but there's a reason MS, Dell, etc has a little sticker they put on stuff. Hint: it works.
"Old man yells at systemd"
what in the world does this one means?
Is it an "O" for open source with a keyhole or a drunken "C" tripping over itself?
- sigs are for wimps.
This may end up being too-little, too-late. The OSI has frequently fallen off the map, rising up now and again to issue some bland press release or statement - perhaps this is the turning of a new leaf? Will the OSI start to update its web page more frequently and take a more active role in the community?
Signs point to no.
I wonder, why hasn't the FSF, with their decent cash hoard, done something like this?
What if Microsoft comes out with a shared source license called "The GPL"(tm) or something? Yeah that's improbable but still I'm sure there is "branding" value in having a recognizable mark (and not just a recognizable hippy with a beard)...
Simpleface.org is an organization trying to do a similiar thing for OSS User Interface design. We're developing a set of graphical design patterns in an open and collaborative way (using the website, it's a wiki) and once we have a decent set we're going to roll them into a guide and try to get OSS projects to use them. Those projects that comply with guidelines get to use the Simpleface logo.
I think this type of certification is a good thing for OSS projects. It provides everyone with the knowledge that some sort of consistency has been achieved. For OSI, it's consistency of the Open Source definition. For Simpleface, it's consistency of design and human computer interaction.
-Russ
Me
I like the idea, but there doesn't appear to be any way of regulating it. Perhaps, I didn't find that text on the web site.
It doesn't seem to be any more powerful then saying, "Hey my stuff's Open Source. See look GPL." If your code really isn't GPL then Stallman knocks on your door and gives your titty-twisters until your nipples fall off.
It's cool to spread the term Open Source and do some branding though, it doesn't matter.
The OSI logo contest information might clear this up. It was conceived by ESR with some pretty specific rules. There were a wide variety of submissions. There was a diverse interpretation of what OS was to represent. The selected image was provided by "Hilmar". Additionally, here is the index of all the submissions.here
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
That logo is just begging for a little s in the middle of that white circle. That would make the big cut circle look like the 'O' and coupled with the 'S' I mentioned, plus the white intersection which looks like an 'I' - which would spell 'OSI', how novel! :)
It looks more like a peep sight, like on a old military carbine. Hmmm.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
An omission from their approved license list is the most liberal "license" of all, which is "released unconditionally to public domain".
It's amazing what you can do with a little turtle graphics. ...
What's wrong with this logo?
Sorry...I know. Trolling. But what else is karma for?
a reference to the famous "copy down" movement...
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
Much cooler selection here.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
we have a logo, we have a logo, we have a logo, we have a logo, we have a logo, we have a logo... YAY!!
(ed)
I have seen a few other projects with the OSI Certification logo/notice. Heck, I've had it on my projects for at least a week (Modified BSD License and GPL).
I find it funny that out of all the logos that were submitted....with fancy names with many characters....the one that one was named 'hi.gif'.
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
I know they have the best intentions but, I've had it with these acronyms! OSI(Open Source Initiative), not to be confused with OSI(Open Systems Interconnect) Model, courtesy of the good old ISO(International Organization for Standardization). Yes, the last one is correct.
I've had it with these groups, which are all in the same industry, coming up with multitudes of acronyms that all have different meanings. In some cases, even the context in which the acronym is used does not reduce the ambiguity of the acronym. Some of these acronyms are so cute I just want to wretch!
Enough already!!
Change it. It *is* an Open Source Initiative, isn't it? Just make sure you abide by the GPL.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
I don't think it looks so much like a keyhole, as it does the outline of the top of a person. Which makes sense. Its an "O" for open, and it puts people in the middle. How 'bout that. :)
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
Open Source built the Internet
Because it did. All major server side software on the internet (major meaning leads its market), an Open Source application (as, of course, defined by the Open Source Definition) leads.
- Web Servers - Apache
- Proxy Servers - Squid
- Email Servers - Sendmail
- DNS - BIND9
- FTP - WuFTPd
- Even OpenSSH is more prominent than the proprietary alternatives (though from an end user point of view that's not really much of an argument).
Most people have absolutely no idea this is the case. They don't realize that every time they connect to the internet they're relying on the root nameservers, all of which use Open Source software on Unix, to do their jobs. And those Open Source systems are rising to the challenge. There are people out there - including many journalist (Adam Turner from The Age is a good example if you live in Australia) who literally think proprietary Microsoft software is fundamenttal to the operation of the internet - even more so than OSS applications.I know I'm risking some karma by sort of stating the obvious, but I like how the design is very simple yet incorporates the following important elements:
1. "O" for Open Source
2. "C" for Certification
3. A "Keyhole" for Security
The "Keyhole" element also looks a little like a stylized person so I suppose it also represents the human element of the development process (community, people power) as well as the personal/functional aspects of software (built for users, usability, productivity).
I'd also interpret the Green colour as reflecting the "natural"/"friendly" aspects of the open source process.
Just my initial reactions, and obviously you can get carried away (it's the "product" not the logo that really counts), but I think OSI's smart to have a consistent brand for certification and that their logo choice is fairly strong and representative of the "product". I like the new logo, the only nitpicks - I'm still not sure about the font choices (OSI certified, TM) and the edges/lines/contrast seem a little too blurred.
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
For those of us who prefer not to use the term "Open Source", how about something similar from the FSF? The FSF already maintains a list of licenses that it considers free software licenses, after all, and it'd be nice to be able to show that your software is truly free, as well as supporting the FSF (make the graphic link to the Free Software Definition, perhaps).
--Joakim Ziegler
Would you buy software with a logo with a huge gaping hole in it?
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
Yet another pointy haired boss device.
Now I can tell my PHB it's ok for me to use Python for development at work. It's certified, with a logo even. That's all he needs to know.
Perl was ok a long time ago, it has had that dot-com domain name for a while now. I didn't even have to argue to be able to use it.
Seriously, is this certification anything else than a PHB pacifier?
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
Internet Protocol
Intellectual Property
Information Protection (the name of the security group where I work)
Implementation Plan (saw this one abbreviated today at work -- it confused the manager)
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
I can see why Python was so quick to adopt the new logo. It looks like "C" in a nosedive, about to crash and burn.
Svenska Livsmedelsverket, Gröna Nyckelhålet Anyone see the resemblence? The green keyhole is the swedish symbol for healthy food :)
i like the logo (not even going to talk about OSI/certifcation)
i just climb trees, and look for rhythm everywhere.
After our new logo was featured on Slashdot, we have received a ton of email asking where to obtain a LOGO Interpreter for Linux. This is the LOGO interpreter we used to create our new, um, logo:
ftp://ftp.anarres.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/ucblogo
-OSI Certification Program
Is the following slogan:
Open Source built the Internet
Because it did. All major server side software on the internet (major meaning leads its market), an Open Source application (as, of course, defined by the Open Source Definition) leads.
Well, that statement actually isn't be true, and the folks at the Free Software Foundation would likely (and correctly) take exception to that claim. There really isn't any reason to create more bad blood between the Free Software people and the Open Source people, and I would be very surprised if ESR would ever make such a claim, given that the entire process preceeded his movement by a number of years.
The internet was built using Free Software, by free software developers, back when it was still called Free Software, and the term "open source" had not yet been coined. NOTE that 'Free Software' isn't the same as GNU.
Free Software built the Internet. Not Open Source. Not GNU. Not the Free Software Foundation.
Open Source, on the other hand, provided an important bridge between corporate suits and the concept of using peer review and the scientific process to obtain better quality software. My only nit to pick with the open source folks is their shyness in discussing Software Freedom, but perhaps that is simply incompatible with their role, which is to extend the concepts of free source code availability to corporate Earth, to which the words Free Software and Freedom remain somewhat alien and mistrusted.
It is rather amazing that so many corporate types, who pride themselves on a deeper understanding of capitalism than the average person (though I suspect that pride is misplaced much of the time) are unable to recognize the importance of fundamental freedom which allows free markets to operate, and instead of understanding the deep pragmatism that underlies freedom in general, and software freedom in particular, they associate it with vague notions of "idealism" that they somehow assume are therefor incompatible with business. Freedom, and software freedom in particular, are incompatible with oligarchies and monopolies, not free markets and competetive capitalism. Quite the reverse, but I digress.
Open Source plays an important role in educating the public at large, and bringing them part way toward understanding what software freedom is about, which is why I personally regret the animosity I've seen between the OSI folks and the FSF. From my perspective OSI is the guy at the door saying "come into my shop and have a look" to someone who would have otherwise walked on by, while the FSF is the guy behind the counter explaining the fundamentals of what it is you are buying, and why.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Did anyone else read that as "OSI Launches Certification Program with Logo"
Had me befuddled there - OSI initiates thier certification program by choosing that old Windows learn-to-program langauge with the turtle?
Long day...
Now, how many workers at our favorite monopoly are off to the patent office to pattent thier newest 'idea' ....
The key
It'll happen.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
More to the point, why do I need this? If this is the last line of defense, if the text in my license isn't descriptive enough, and if I need another group/consortium to put their stamp of approval on my work, then how is my software supposed to qualify as soft. I mean isn't that what software is supposed to be? Soft?
Man, this is getting out of hand. Why don't we all wear color coded uniforms based on whether we're trying to get something out of software development or contribute something back to it.
The last thing I think software developers need, especially those of the open source ilk, are certifications. Standards, sure. We have a hard enough time selling folks on the quality of our stuff. Why hamstring development more with yet another hurdle? I doubt developers will curry this certification's favor.
What happened to the TacoBell logo for the OSI model? Or did they get sued?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I'm all for the OSI, but I can't say I care for the keyhole symbol. The keyhole has long been a symbol of invaded privacy... y'know, people peeping through the keyhole. This association is all the more strengthened because of the term "open source", meaning "look inside the program". I don't think the general punlic is going to get a particularly positive message from this logo.
Miko O'Sullivan
Some say that the Tinkertoy certification is just a paper certification while you really have to know your blocks to pass the lego exam. So I think I will going to Toy's-R-us and get me a study kit and passing the seven-11 to get me a 6 pack.
Copyright protection already exists. The point of the OSI certification does what?
--- Sueños del Sur - a webcomic about four young siblings
Funny. I was under the impression that BSD software built the internet
Only in part
So, no. It wasn't built on Free Software, either. It was built on BSD.
BSD is free software. Indeed, many of the BSD folks will argue that their software is "free-er" than GPLed software (it depends on your definition of freedom as to whether you agree with that stance or not, but either way it is irrelevant to this discussion).
I doubt you will find any BSD developer or proponent, anywhere on the face of the Earth, that would argue that their software isn't free software, and while FreeBSD predates Open Source by many, many years, FreeBSD does not predate the FSF, or the widespread, colloqual use of the term free software used to describe it, and many other projects all of which, taken together, formed the core of what we now call the Internet.
It is another very common myth that Free Software == GPLed software, and that is a myth that the Free Software Foundation, as well as the BSD folks, are at pains to dispell.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The internet was built using Free Software, by free software developers, back when it was still called Free Software, and the term "open source" had not yet been coined. NOTE that 'Free Software' isn't the same as GNU.
I don't think which term was coined first matters. AFAIK most of these tools were not labelled as Free Software by their authors in terms of the FSF's definition (the FSF list of freedoms). They were applications created by people who wanted to share their code with the internet, but not under a specific definition of Free Software (the FSFs) or Open Source. However all these applications are both Open Source and Free Software (in the FSF sense) because they comply with the Open Source Definition and the FSF's list of freedoms.
A Friend of mine recently authored OpenVPN which appeared in Slashdot. We were talking about ways to generate money from Open Source.
So I suggested that the GPL be gently modified to require non-profit and government organization who use the software to submit a receipt for donated services to the author of the Open Source program as a tax rightoff. Most programmers pay 30% to 50% in taxes, so the rightoff is worth 30% to 50% face value - provided the Programmer is gainfully employed).
This would really be a way to get the government to pay Open Source programmers for their contribution.
Can anyone give a reason why the GPL - or "Certified Open Source" software shouldn't or couldn't include the idea of manditory donantion receipts for qualifying organizations?
And why this wouldn't be a fair and practical approach to funding part-time Open Source Efforts?
AIK
The OSI has trademarked a logo looking like a keyhole for their use as a graphical certification mark
While it is correct that a trademark registration for the typed phrase "OSI Certified" has been applied for by OSI, that application has been initially refused. I could find no application at the USPTO website for the logotype, apart from the typed mark.
Am I the only one who is reminded of a certain Trojan's logo? You decide.
It looks like a Pacman just died up-side-down.
I haven't seen one of those since the fifties. That logo is a PERFECT representation of a "Magic Eye" tube.
These tubes that had a cone-shaped phosphor-covered anode that lit up green, and a single grid wire that prevented electrons from striking a portion of the anode. The grid wire cast a wedge-shaped shadow on the anode. The width of the shadow varied with the grid voltage, causing the wedge to get wider or narrower.
They were widely used a cheap substitutes for meters. They also had the advantage of being inertialess. They were most familiar as tuning indicators in radios, recording level indicators on tape recorders, and null indicators on certain kinds of lab equipment (capacitance bridges, etc.)
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Funny you mention that. Today I did "apt-get install gopher". Seems that many of the sites for the blind were/are gopher sites.
/usr/doc
For what we actually use the web for, gopher seems remarkably useful. Not sure of the ins/outs of it, but certainly it would work better when I'm browsing
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Are the tests really hard? :)
This
Don't forget the BSD TCP/IP stack!!
:)
/. you already know
BTW: great slogan, I agree they should use it.
Best wishes
\\Uriel
P.S.: I think there are a few more OSS projects that built the
internet, but the the BSD TCP/IP stack *was*(*is*?) the internet!
P.P.S.: And for those idiots that think that Internet is only the
Web, the NCSA browser was open source, and just check the "About"
menu in IE, and tell me what you find there? more open source,
even in the core of M$ products
P.P.P.S.:Of course that if you are reading
all this, right?
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
- Illustrator PHB fodder.
- Macromedia Dreamweaver jEdit, Emacs, vi, etc. If you need a program like this, you deserve to be stuck with Windows.
- Macromedia Fireworks, Freehand, Flash, Shockwave, Director, Authorware More PHB fodder.
That's an insult and a half to the hard-working developers who created Cygwin, GTK+ for Win32, and the like. If you're stupid enough to have a business model based on creating and maintaining artificial scarcity, you deserve to lose your shirt. Witness the struggle to get Microsoft Windows to some usable point. Eazel tanked because its flagship product was a file manager. Don't kid yourself. There's been an Open Source GUI since you were in diapers -- the X Window System. Obviously you've never heard of the concept of interoperability. Are you aware that AbiWord can read and write KWord documents, and vice versa? And now you insult the the developers of fine office suite software like AbiSuite, KOffice, and OpenOffice. Didn't your mother teach you manners when you were little?The only way the typical /.er can pick up a chick is with a forklift. -- AC
The OSI Logo is copyright.
Putting it on something that isn't certified will cause the OSI Lawyers (Mrs ESR?) to threaten you with big long words and fancy looking documents.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.Read more of this story at Slashdot.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I'm pretty sure that you're joking, but just in case you aren't: LOGO was not made for Windows. There are Windows LOGO interperaters, but LOGO was initially designed back in the old days, way pre-Windows.
My first experience with programming was using LOGO on a Tandy TRS-80 computer. I was six and I thought it was absolutely great.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
I don't know if it is just coincidence or not, but isn't that the same font that SGI use for their company logo & graphics?
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
I turn my head a little... that's it. It's a copyright symbol which fell down. The "C" is facing the baseline.
--binkley
Open Source, on the other hand, provided an important bridge between corporate suits and the concept of using peer review and the scientific process to obtain better quality software.
The scientific process is making a hypothesis, seeing if it fits the facts of nature, and a lot of "lather, rinse, repeat"ing. Can you not misuse the term please, because it can cause as much confusion as the "Linux"/"Gnu/Linux" and "Free"/"Open Source" nomenclature.
Am I the only one who notices the irony of slapping a big horsey TM on an Open Source logo?
That aside, adding a (tm) to anything is usually a knee-jerk reaction of inexperienced designers and naive clients who dictate that the trademark be added because 1) they think it entitles them to sue people, 2) it makes the logo "look official," 3) "everyone else does it," 4) "it will scare people away from using it, or 5) "our lawyers said we need it." Even a cursory search into trademark law reveals that you don't need to (tm) something for it to be trademarked or copyrighted. The mere act of publishing work (e.g., posting for public view) establishes trademark rights and allows you to file a lawsuit if your rights are infringed. You don't need to file anything with the government, either. Just do your homework and you'll be fine.
The only time a (tm) helps is in court, to protect against the defense of "I didn't know it was trademarked."
But just imagine if the OSI started suing Web sites for infringing on their copyrights. They'd become a laughingstock overnight.
Personally, I don't see how this is offtopic... I mean, the friggin article description mentioned it looking like a keyhole, and i was merely adding to that discussion. Oh well, i've been contemplating the change from karmawhore to troll anyway...