Slashdot Mirror
'Open Source Media' vs 'Open Source Media, Inc'
Karl writes "Last week OSM (Open Source Media) launched to what some are calling an odd start. Most notably naming a controversy has ensued with Christopher Lydon's public radio show Open Source, a production of Open Source Media, Inc.."
Seems to me that "Open Source" is starting to turn into a buzzword used by people when they want the geek masses to take notice of something and proclaim it good. And it seems to work sometimes, but I guess we'll see how this goes. Some of the updates don't look promising. Could be neat though.
Alright, just in time to coincide with the launching of my company, Free Software, Inc. I'll have a product list and pricelist available shortly.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Anybody else notice that most of their "current headlines" come from China's propaganda agency, Xinhua News Agency?
Odd start indeed...
Who is Christopher Lydon? More specifically, what contribution to the open source community has he made? His name doesn't ring a bell with me.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
It seems that their server could use some open source software.
Not only did they launch themselves with an anti-open source attitude (prohibitive copyright terms which they've since removed from their privacy policy), they didn't do a simple google search to make sure that no confusion would occur as a result of their name selection. OSM should have stuck with "Pajamas Media"... there's nothing wrong with that and it pokes reverent fun at those who shrug off bloggers.
I am an Army of 1 in 10
Oh, wow, we've never seen this before. A bunch of right-wingers attempt to co-opt something "hip" and "cool" and totally out of context in the effort to help sell their message. I'm shocked, shocked, that they would do such a thing.
So the big question is.... who is financing these guys?
My karma is not a Chameleon.
If somebody will made a freeware - it is good. But if someone else will made a Open Source Software - it will be much better. Just wondering: how many of us use source files of Open Source Software? :) I - never (I am programmer). So, what about regular users?
Hide your files and folders from others!
OSM is the rightwing American news source fronting for Xinhua, the official Chinese mafia government news agency. Now the "neocon" destruction of American integrity, wealth, labor and unity makes sense: they're selling us out to the Chinese.
--
make install -not war
"Most notably naming a controversy has ensued with Christopher Lydon's public radio show"
Wouldn't one normally phrase that as: "Most notably a naming controversy has ensued with Christopher Lydon's public radio show"?
Relinquished you have, open source it is not, much confusion this has caused. I sense much anger in you.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
... I'll put you in my Freedom Jail!
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
It sounds to me like Open Source Media Inc. is getting upset because OSM Media, LLC is using a name which is similar but not identical to a descriptive name for which they've applied but not yet been granted a trademark.
I can't see how this complaint has any legal merit at all. They haven't been granted the trademark yet, and given how descriptive it is I doubt that it will be granted anyway; and what they're trying to trademark ("Open Source") is not the same as what they're complaining about ("Open Source Media").
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
that they don't even recognise what zope has to do with open source. Actually I think both side should get 20 whacks with the anti-trademark-abuse stick. A radio show and a blog talking about getting lawyers involved in a dispute over each using the words open source is about as pathetic as them fussing over one have the .com and the other the .net!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Like Charles Johnson and Michelle Malkin. Johnson runs Little Green Footballs, a website largely devoted to providing mouthbreathing bigots an opportunity to discuss how we ought to be wiping the "Islamofascists" off the earth by whatever means necessary. Malkin, on the other hand, is a shrill little lunatic who believes that its perfectly acceptable - nay, that it's morally incumbent upon us, - to inter and imprison whole classes of people based solely on racial and religious criteria. That these people may themselves have never been involved in, or entertained any ideas of, terrorist activity means nothing - if you're swarthy and/or Muslim, you're deserving of being locked up in the interests of US national security.
I don't mind conservatives speaking their minds and having opinons, but these people and their ilk are beyond the pale. Mass murder and inprisonment, just because you're afraid of what people who share the same ethnic or religious designation, that's irrational and completely unacceptable in a democratic state like the US. These people are no better than white supremacists - they've merely picked target groups that aren't taboo yet.
Interesting background on the creation of OSM:
a sant/2005/11/the_certain_thi.html
http://dennisthepeasant.typepad.com/dennis_the_pe
Doesn't sound like their principles are very "open source"...
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
...attempt to co-opt something "hip" and "cool" and totally out of context...
Oh please. I'm as much a geek as the next guy, but I'm not going to pretend there's anything "hip" or "cool" about open source.
I can see it now. "Hey baby. I'm hip. Check out my apache install. I'm so cool, I'm running linux. Now how about going back to your place? No? What... that guy? What's so great about him? Sure, he knows wines, plays tennis, and can dance, but seriously, isn't it cooler to know all the switches to the gnu c++ compiler?"
I'm not saying there's no appeal, but that appeal isn't widespread enough to cross into the realm of "hip" and "cool". We've all seen those terrible television spots where balding parents make terribly embarassing attempts to show how hip they are. Lets apply our adjectives a little more judiciously.
to find a unique company name it doesn't surprise me much that there was a naming collision.
OTOH, I still can't figure out how the OSM site differs from many other sites that already exist.
Clear, Dark Skies
Long before "Open Source" meant software is was in widespread use in the military intel community to refer to publicly available information such as news and publications. In fact, it is still used that way.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Christopher Lydon was the host on WBUR/NPR's "The Connection", one of the best radio interview/talk shows around.
Things must be really bad in Boston.
They hired him here in the Twin Cities to replace Katherine Lampert when she left to go work with Al Franken. He was horrible. He lasted maybe a month before he was handed his walking papers.
I say he was horrible, because he was clearly leading his interviews. That is, not just asking questions, but blatantly pushing the answers in a certain direction.
That said, his new show out there may very well be ok. Lydon has been pushing the notion of Open Source Politics for a couple of years now. His BOPNews.com website, etc. The idea of OSP is more citizen involvement.
I don't think OSM is itself doing anything disengenuous. They are similarly approaching this from a citizen involvement standpoint. Although, my gut feel is, given their conservative bent chances are anybody in their group who moves off the reservation will get immediately kicked out of the group.
There was me, the CEO, the VP of marketing, and my own boss. People tossed out ideas and the VP would Google the names right away. A simple and obvious strategy to avoid such a namespace collision.
My own "net savvy" was useful as well. Someone suggested calling the product "stormfront" for example (for some reason, people in the tech sector like badass weather names) and I told 'em that stormfront dot org was a neo-nazi website. They looked at me funny after that. Glad nobody suggested "goatse"!
Anyways, my point is that these OSM people don't sound pretty tech savvy themselves if they didn't do the simple step of Googling their own name while thinking it up. And it's not just a silly HAW HAW mistake: tech companies are not competitive if everyone in charge is too out of touch to know what is on the Internet.
Caj
Decades ago, phrases like "hi fi" (and many decades before that, "electric") were used as meaningless buzzwords. Hi-fi hula hoops! Electric combs! It's a natural cultural response to something that has made a big dent.
X
That's an excellent point; the community that a blog attracts in some way reflects aspects of the ideas written about that might otherwise be less obvious.
Being against a religion is NOT racism stupid.
And calling either person racist shows just how ignorant you are of what they write. Then again, this whole post is icredibly ill informed.
Linguist Mark Liberman wrote about this the other day. Explains how OSM Media LLC took the Open Source name without any of the philosophy intact.
...free of charge, free as in beer, gratis, free gift now!!
.99 cents is everywhere!!!
Did I say it was free? Did I say gift? all in the same sentence?
What tha f!!!!! heck!!!
I can see open source as being used the same way in the near future. Just like the never-gets-old "buy it for $9.99". Stupid
Have a good one.
===== "Every head is a different world so don't invade mine you FREAK!" smartSAGA said
Ok, I've quit replying to most of the slashdot stories but I can't pass this one up. Someone needs to ask if Open Source Media, Inc. licenses their content under an open source license. If not they need to get sued for fraud. They should seek remedial relief (ask for a remedy) and ask the judge to re-license everything they own under the Free Document License. Just my $0.02 worth.
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
The dumbest thing about this story is that neither OSM Media, LLC, or Open Source Media, Inc. or Open Source, the show, have anything to do with Open Source Software, a much more meaningful and established term.
Quoth them: "We consider Open Source Media to be a description of what we are and do, not a trade name.", "We chose the name "Open Source" because it signals the way we produce radio and web content."
Apparently "Open Source" now means blogging about politics. Who knew?
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
This seems to be an approriate characterization of Christopher Lydon... (Albeit my characterization was that he is a blatant blaring asshole, possibly of the Goatse variety). I have been listening to Open Source (which I also thought would be a lwn.net-like publication) for the past few weeks.
Not only does he lead his questions, he also uses blatantly inflamotory language, and interrupts the discussion when it leads into less inflamatory areas... See the Miers pieces for examples about that.
And then... there's that summary... that he gives. Trying... to put certain... phrases together... to sound profound.
It's f**king annoying.
Your whole comment is an ad-hominem attack. First, Charles Johnson is not a racist, and neither is Michelle Malkin. And Islamofascism is not a race--it's an ideology, a dark and sinister one that has spread terrorism throughout the ages. I would be surprised if you could find anyone who thinks the idea of a global caliphate is a good one! You should educate yourself on what Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi really want. Hint: If they win this war, we won't be allowed to show photographs of women, vote in a free election, drink alcohol, speak our mind, charge or pay interest, or challenge a moslem in court!
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
The cynics over at Go Flock Yourself really tore "Open Source Media" a new arsehole for using a misleading name.
OSM is an attempt by several right-wing bloggers to band together
While that's certainly how it is portrayed (and the prominent members are generally conservative) It does seem to have a *few* left-of-center blogs and some completely non-political ones as well. Also, some of the ones called "conservative" don't exactly fall into the republican mode. The gay libertarian who runs "Classical Values" comes to mind.
But I think you're right about the ads.
Clear, Dark Skies
I found the connection (his previous show,alway on during my drive home) unlistenible. Tries to use "big" words and terminology sometimes ends up using them incorrectly. He left NPR when they wouldn't pay him enough money (its public radio?!). He didn't ask good insightfull questions during his interviews. Always trying to show the bredth of his knowledge when the show isn't about him.
After a show where he had a folk singer on (for apparently no other reason than, it turns out Mr. Lydon was a huge fan!) I never listened again. I hear the promos for "open source" I wonder how long it will last, or if he's gotten any better.
Someone here register that name, quick...
Tag lost or not installed.
Ok, so I had an open mind and I thought "ok, I bet Open Source Media would HAVE TO BE fair and balanced!". I just went to the site and the first thing I notice is that EVERY article on the whole site protects the authors with blanket statements such as "Credit: The Orlando Sentinel, Fla." or "compiled by staff at SO-AND-SO NEWSPAPER". As a matter of fact, when people post stories to this site they are given credit at the top of the story as the poster when in fact they PLEIDGERIZED the story from an actual news source.
If you ask me, this is all a bunch of chicken #*($&# because its too hard to find references for factual evidence on the site. All that I see here is a OSM.org site dedicated to smokescreening actual information.
Im serious here, I don't mean this as flamebait please.
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
At least osm is running a Open Source Content Management Systems, Plone. There are a ton of other systems running Plone as well - a list is available del.icio.us
If it Bleeds,
It Leads!
A clue as to where this is coming from might be the names of two prominent "neo-cons" on the Board of Advisors, Fox News' John Podhoretz, son of Norm Podhoretz of Commentary Magazine, and Michael Ledeen from the American Enterprise Institute, of Iran-Contra fame.
Look at the claims of openness from SUN and others before. Open and Open Source has been a monstrous buzzword for years.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Do they offer free software too?
Lets just say to avoid any more confusion between "open souce" (as in free software) and "Open Source Media," how about those folks at OSM keep the word "Meda" attached to the name of their show/website.
Your entire response is an ad-hominem attack on a straw man.
Nobody said that the radical ideology of bin Laden and his ilk is desirable. There's a difference, however, between condemning the radical ideology of a small sect of a religion, and the religion as a whole. I understand that there are indeed people who want an Islamic caliphate, but I know that that's not even remotely a majority of Muslims. Yet, it's obvious from your post that you (perhaps unintentionally) conflate the religion with the radical interpretatoin some have given. And that's what Charles Johnson and Michelle Malkin do, as well. Malkin wrote a whole book about why the US internment of the Japanese in WWII was a good thing (twisting history significantly in the process), with an eye to providing a justification for the internment of Muslims in the US; as for CJ and the LGF crowd, well, the tendency to believe all Islam has the characteristics of the bin Ladin radicalism is well attested.
I'm quite well awaare of bin Ladin and what he wants; I've read the transcripts of the videotapes he's released and the translations of the letters he's written. I don't approve of him or his methods. But I also don't confuse him and his methods with his entire religion. In the same way, I view Christian Dominionists as a dangerous, radical group, but I don't think they represent all of Christianity.
PLEIDGERIZED would be a totally-badass name for a record label! Or maybe PLAIDGERIZED.
Paizurishitetai desu ka?
OK, OK, maybe it's a bit strange to post this comment on slashdot.org , but the point at which I got really cross about all this was the point at which the pajama party adopted the domain 'osm.org'. The .org top-level domain is, at least in theory, intended for non-commercial, non-governmental, non-academic use. By describing themselves as osm.org the pajamas are making an implied claim to be non-commercial, which is not true and is consequently false advertising. Yes, I know this applies to slashdot as well...
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Looks like they folded...
c urrow=1
http://www.osm.org/site/story/11212005namechange?
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
...when there are multiple corporations competing for business in the same market.
Political revolutions (and elections) are similar. During the revolution (and campaigning), any faction trying to gain market share does lots of things to convince people they're the "good guys." After the revolution (or election), the new holders of power stop trying to please, unless they're convinced that they could lose their position if people aren't satisfied.
I don't fully agree myself in this post, but I thought this observation should be mentioned.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Heh, Open Source Man was the first thing I though as well.
I wonder how he's been?
And Islamofascism is not a race--it's an ideology, a dark and sinister one that has spread terrorism throughout the ages. I would be surprised if you could find anyone who thinks the idea of a global caliphate is a good one!
There are many dark and sinister ideologies. I suggest you focus on those existing within your sphere of influence and let the peaceful practitioners of Islam confront theirs. I know you think you live in an enlightened society, but it is my belief that any society whose leaders condone violence as a legitimate tool of societal change are too close to the Dark Side.
Long before "Open Source" meant software is was in widespread use in the military intel community to refer to publicly available information such as news and publications. In fact, it is still used that way.
the fact that open source is a descriptive term used to describe information that is openly available through news and other publications should relegate the similarity of "Open Source" alone as indefensible as a trademark in regards to media and journalism or any other publications.
Or hard rightist what's his name? Oh yeah, that's right... all of them.