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OSI To Crack Down On "Open Source" Abusers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the opening-a-can-of-whup-ass dept.

munchola sends us word that the Open Source Initiative is getting tough on any vendors who claim to be open source despite not actually using a license approved by the OSI. In his blog post, OSI president Michael Tiemann writes: "Enough is enough. Open Source has grown up. Now it is time for us to stand up. I believe that when we do, the vendors who ignore our norms will suddenly recognize that they really do need to make a choice: to label their software correctly and honestly, or to license it with an OSI-approved license that matches their open source label."

9 of 379 comments (clear)

  1. Is "Open Source" a registered trademark? by AusIV · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is "Open Source" a registered trademark? If not, I don't think the OSI gets to decide which licenses are open source and which aren't.

    1. Re:Is "Open Source" a registered trademark? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes, but interestingly enough, not by OSI. OSI owns Open Source Initiative Approved License mark and the 'OSI certified' mark.

      IANAL, but I don't think OSI has a leg to stand on here.

      --
      My blog
  2. OSI forcing licenses? by Lilo-x · · Score: 5, Interesting

    why should they force companies to stick to a license, isn't this just OSI nearing closer to the same type of control corporation impose on their software

    if there is a such a thing as true OSI then why do we need licenses? open source = you can see the source I don't think the definition should have to apply any further than that if companies dont want to

    --
    This is my sig, there are many like it but this is mine
    1. Re:OSI forcing licenses? by mdwh2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      open source = you can see the source

      Except that isn't alone the definition - as I understand it, this was a term introduced by the OSI, and not one which preexisted.

      Whether they have a legal right to enforce it depends on trademark law, but I don't think it's right for companies to use false or misleading advertising, by trying to pretend a term applies to their software, when it doesn't.

  3. Open Source License Monopoly... by mulvane · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So my license I make up for the hell of it with my terms that still allows anyone to view and audit my code if not approved by OSI means I can't market open source? Even though my code is open? Am I missing something about the word open?

  4. Ummm, right. by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 5, Funny

    Since when does OSI have power over *anything*? This would be like the American Peanut Council complaining that certain products said they "may contain peanuts," when they actually didn't.

  5. Open Source is a specific kind of software by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Open Source software has licensing that conforms to the Open Source Definition and in addition the source code must be available. It is not just anything you think of. Long ago, OSI decided to abandon registration of "Open Source" alone, in my opinion on bad advice from their then legal counsel. However, it's still a common law trademark. But regardless of its trademark status, the community should not tolerate just anything being called Open Source, or you will find Microsoft using it for stuff that includes no freedom to modify, etc.

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  6. Open Source != Free Software by sfarmstrong · · Score: 5, Informative

    Open source is about exposing your code to the general public. This enables third-party developers to more easily analyze and make use of your software. It enhances the academic community's ability to experiment with, research, and just generally make "fair use" of software.

    Free software is about exposing the intellectual property contained within the code - the copyrights and patents attached to the code. It enhances the public's access to software, and hence their ability to take full advantage of their computers. More importantly, it prevents waste. For example, can you imagine the extra cost to the economy if every developer had to implement public key cryptography from the ground up?

    Free software implies open source; open source does not imply free software. Please, let's not confuse the two. It would be wonderful (and arguably sensible) if Microsoft made its code open source. It would be absurd for Microsoft to release its copyright of said code.

  7. Badgeware is the problem by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Badgeware, software that requires that you place a badge on your web site, is the problem. SugarCRM is one of the offenders.

    In composing the Open Source Definition, my aim was that there would be NO legal burden upon users at all. A user should be able to put OSI Certified Open Source software on a computer and go, without reading the license. That's one reason the OSD prohibited the then-popular "Educational Use Only" provision. Requiring the user to perform something - like transmit an advertising badge - is similarly unacceptable because it would place a legal burden on the user.

    In practice, issues like patents and even Sarbanes-Oxley create a legal load for some users, but that is not under our developer's control. We had a license back then that imposed an attribution-related legal load on distributors: the original Apache license required attribution in some advertising. It was awkward, there was no way to implement it automatically, and it would have presented a scaling problem if hundreds of authors required attribution in - for example - an operating system distribution's advertising. The community eventually convinced Apache to drop the advertising provision.

    That old Apache license has obvious parallels to more current "badgeware" proposals, but badgeware isn't a new issue for Open Source. Almost a decade ago, I reviewed the first Zope license for SPI. Zope's original submission required a web badge. I convinced their investor, Hadar Pedhazur, to make that a nice request rather than a requirement. Most people honored the request. The GPL contained an attribution provision, and still does. OSD was written to fit GPL. But the burden of the GPL's requirement was only upon developers, and it was the minimum necessary amount of attribution to communicate the author identification and the fact that the user had rights.

    A developer can be especially irked when someone else labels that developers work as his own. But protecting that developer's business and taking the commercial value out of such relabeling does not require attribution. It could be done using any share-and-share-alike (GPL-like) license that closes the ASP loophole. But it's still fair for a developer to want to be attributed. I think the minimal practical goals for attribution are:

    1) The developer should be able to find it.
    and
    2) The developer should be able to show to others.

    This does not mean that the developer should require others to blow his advertising horn. Some companies already use attribution that isn't visible unless you are looking for it - it's embedded in HTML comments. In contrast, the draft Affero flavor of GPL 3 closes the ASP loophole by implementing the minimal necessary requirement for a developer to preserve a visible message informing the user of their rights. The visibility is to implement a separate goal of FSF: that users appreciate their rights and learn to demand them. Should OSI approve this new Affero license, or should it ask that FSF - rather than demanding a direct channel to users, search for that information and present the result on its own sites?

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.