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How Open Does Open Source Need to be?
mjhuot writes "Doug MacEachern, CTO of Hyperic and creator of mod_perl, responds to criticism by Tarus Balog, a maintainer of OpenNMS, that his company's recent open source announcement is nothing but a marketing ploy. It is starting the debate on whether or not just releasing some code qualifies an application as 'open source.'"
There isn't one open source license. Some are more restrictive than others. Some are more open than others. People need to be more cautious in their use of terminology and should not use GPL interchangably with open source.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
It's really easy to know whether "releasing some code" qualifies: read the definition
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Ugh? Mozilla (Netscape), OpenOffice.org (Staroffice) ..
I believe it used to be called Star Office (and still is), created by a German company and bought by Sun. Someone is sure to correct me.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
The term "open source" has an official definition right here: http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
Whether some software is open source is equivalent to whether it conforms to all points in this definition. There you have it, debate settled.
It is an entirely different issue if this definition can be legally enforced; it cannot, as far as I know. So there is no mechanism preventing companies from making noise by falsely using the term. That is why one shuold always take an "open source" or "free software" claim with a grain of salt, and verify the claim carefully.
Netscape->Mozilla->Firefox
Quake 1,2,3 (although not mantained anymore)
Google's AJAX toolkit
"Open source means you can read the source, much like an "open book exam" means you can read the book... By my definition, even Windows is Open Source."
Actually, the term Open Source has a clear technical definition, which is available on the OSI website:
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
In my opinion it is not as successful a definition as the 'four freedoms' used by the FSF, but Open Source is a less misleading term than Free Software for most people.
For one, it has the advantage of actually sounding like a technical term.
Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. -- From the Open-Source definition.
The difference between Free Software and Open Source is a matter of philosophy and intended goals. The difference between Free Software and Open Source is not what you are permitted to do with the software. Open Source Software is just as redistributable and forkable as Free Software.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
> Such as ISO.
.torrent (or emule) client. It is very likely that nobody will sue you for doing so, but still it doesn't make it legal.
Have you ever read any "Open" document from the ISO? Please do try to do so and you will see that to read that "open" document you have to pay about 100 chf (~ 65 eur or 80 usd).
Of course, you can read most of them by downloading them with your favorite
Free Software if Free Software
Open Source is proprietary name for quasi free software and it is a name made up by proprietary companies in order to destroy the real free software. If you don't believe me, go and ask RMS. He'll be happy to inform you about that.
I haven't seen anyone else mention this so far, but wasn't that debate ended some time ago? I thought Bruce Perens' Open Source Definitition was the final word on the matter.
If it conforms to the definition, it's open source. By definition.
If it doesn't, it's something else.
This is not complicated.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Actually although I do strongly believe in the "pure GPL" model, I also think that Outlook users and actually any Microsoft "freebe" user DESERVES to pay.
There is no acceptable reason to use outlook or outlook express, and by using them people do help making the internet a less nice place.
Making them pay is good.