Openwashing: Users and Adopters Beware

jenwike writes: With the success of open source software today, we are seeing organizations undertake more egregious marketing and promotion schemes that exaggerate their participation in, contributions to, and/or licensing of open source software. Their hope is to capitalize on the label of 'open source' and the success that goes along with it. The reality is that the responsibility is on the end-users to review the software and accompanying license to ensure it meets your expectations.

Comments

Ideological purity ...

[gstoddart]

Here we go. This is effectively talking about being ideologically pure enough for open source.

Sorry, users want the end result, not the ideology. Most people do not want to deal with the political crap which goes around this.

I've seen "discussions" about this in IT almost devolve into fist fights, as someone invariably starts to sound like Stallman -- a smug, condescending prick who acts holier-than-thou and tells you how wrong you are.

So, you'll excuse me if my first response is "not everyone gives a damn, and many people do not want to hear the screeching weasels which come along with this discussion".

Rabid ideological open source are the vegans of the technology world -- mostly they piss people off and cause a lot of eye rolling as they foam at the mouth.

I've seen people go off on people who don't work in tech, and those people find themselves feeling like they've been ambushed by some idiot who tells them they'll burn in hell.

I say this whole article is flamebait.