Falconwolf, I really assure you: no brand "Open Source" existed before we created it. There were one or two uses of the words together, they didn't go anywhere, and anyway "prior art" doesn't work for trademarks as it does for patents. There is usage in another category for defense intelligence information. Did you know that "X" is a trademark? But surely, someone used "X" before it was filed:-)
Ah but two years before, in 1996, Caldera used "open source
There are a couple of embryonic usages of the words together that didn't go anywhere. They can not be considered to interfere with the creation of a brand. There is also a separate usage for the defense intelligence industry.
if a GPLv3'd web application has a "download source" link, then users can't dike out that link.
Actually, they can. But they still have to provide some way visible to the user that will provide the source. That might be another link, or it might be that you "diked out" HTTP entirely and your new version runs SMTP. If it runs SMTP, you would need the SMTP "HELP" command to say something about the "SOURCE" command, and the "SOURCE" command would have to work.
That said, I'm still not sure I'm for certification of Affero 3.
What if you wrote a book, had no family and then died? Who owns it then? What of government works? etc.
Under the Berne Copyright Convention, it is copyrighted by default. The U.S. ratified that treaty. Before that treaty, things were public domain by default, after then, they were copyrighted by default.
What happens if you die with nobody to inherit? Yes, the state you live in would probably own it.
So is there anything to be done about Open Source works that are not software, and do not have any sense of Source to them at all?
Probably the nice thing is for us to not be Intel, which went after a yoga studio called "Yoga Inside" when Intel had "Intel Inside". If it's not software or about software, it's not our problem. Then again, these days when you have computer fabrication and field-programmable logic arrays, hardware is sometimes made of something that looks very much like software. So, maybe policy making would take more than one paragraph I'm writing while sleepy tonight.
It's past midnight in Norway. I started posting on this topic in London. Another day for the public speaker:-)
Don Marti said in his blog a few days ago, and I agree: Why are we giving software patent holders free QA so that they will have more solid patents to use against us?. And some folks are trying to tell us that this won't expose us to the treble damages we would get if we looked at granted patents because these are only applications, but what happens when these get granted? Do we have to somehow insulate ourselves from knowledge that they are ever granted?
I am not at all sure this would help either Open Source or small and medium sized proprietary software developers, who I imagine are the folks they want to have doing peer review - and also the folks most in danger from Software patents. I do not at this time recommend that you participate in this at all if you are an Open Source developer, the risk of being exposed to treble damages is too high. I don't know if you should participate in this if you're even an Open Source sympathizer. It sounds too much like an effort to save a software patent system that we should be shutting down.
The only way I think it would help would be if we could entirely kill a patent application. Just fixing one only makes it more powerful.
re: copyright, yes you can declare software as public domain in the USA. You can't have copyright without public domain, that is, copyright is defined as materials not in the public domain [and vice versa].
Show me where the law says you can dedicate something to the public domain. We all do it, and it would probably stand up in court, but I don't think the law says you can. Last time I checked, things went into public domain when their patent or copyright expired, period.
I learned long ago people don't want to be told how/where/what to buy/use/do.
I am glad that other people do feel the discussion of politics is important. I think it helps to develop a just society. I guess it would not be necessary in the libertarian utopia.
The point here is that the OSI's attempt to define Open Source also constitutes an attempt to redefine the word open
No. On February 2, 1998, we created a brand called "Open Source". It no more attempts to redefine "Open" than the brand "The Prudential" attempts to redefine "The".
I contend that the only difference between Open Source and Free Software is how we promote them. Open Source is promoted to business, Free Software talks about Freedom first and is more a priori. RMS is almost agreed with this as of two weeks ago, he says that the licensing is 99% the same and he acknowledges that the campaign to differentiate Free Software from Open Source is ended and doesn't matter.
What you are talking about is "Disclosed Source Code". It already has a name. It also has a problem. Companies go out of business. And then you get a situation where nobody can fix it.
Well, I wasn't accusing you. I am convinced that you really hold your opinion. But I am also convinced that there are real astroturfers out there. Even my own employer once in a while has a "Please put digg points on this" message go out to its "everyone" list. And I have heard from PR agencies who sell the fact that they can put multiple comments on Slashdot.
How is this visible notice of copyright in a program's output [Affero 3 licensing] not a "badge"?
Well, first it's not a logo on your web page. It's a command, somewhere in the program, that causes the program to tell you how to get its source code by giving you a URL or something, and of course the source has to be at that URL. That fixes the "ASP loophole" that allows people to modify GPL software and keep the changes private if they never distribute. And that command has to be visible to the user, in a menu, or as one link in the entire site rather than a badge on every page.
All of that said, I'm still not sure that OSI should certify Affero 3. Sorry, Henri. I am not on the OSI board, so I won't be the one voting. I should be on that board, but that's another story. But I'd still like to hear arguments about Affero 3 and OSI certification, so that I can get it straight in my own head.
I'm from Norway, you actually meet with our government on a regular basis? That's good news! I was not aware of that. Keep up the good work!
There is a technology committee of the government, and one of the members hosts me in his home several times a year and consults me via email at other times when I can contribute to what they are working on. Sometimes I go to Oslo and speak directly with ministers and their staffers. And I teach at HiA in Kristainsand in the summer. I'll be at their Grimstad campus in the morning, I'm at LHR waiting for a flight change. I take a a little credit for Norway having the most sane policies regarding these issues of any country I know, but of course many people work on it.
I gave out software as public domain calling it "open source," is that OSI blessed? Should I be shamed for not using a license?
There is certainly no shame in giving out public domain software. And I think that OSI acknowledges that public domain software with available source is qualified to be called OSI Certified Open Source, so this is moot anyway. However, making it stick that your software is actually public domain means using the right legal language, and a whole lot of people get it wrong. U.S. copyright law actually does not include a definition of how someone can dedicate their software to the public domain or even whether they can do it. And of course that complicates things if you should ever get to court over something. So, BSD licensing is usually legally more solid than a dedication to the public domain.
I make my statement by just not using software that annoys me.
This is voting with your wallet, but without telling anyone else how you feel or helping to form a community (by being in one), you reduce your chances that anyone will listen to you and change to something that does not annoy you. Politics requires communication to work. Otherwise, you're sort of like a hermit who separates himself from society for good and valid reasons but does nothing to help reform society.
Well, I suggest you not get too depressed about what you are reading here, because you have astroturfing from the badgeware camp, and the generally anti-Free-Software camp, and on top of that just plain ignorance. Remember that no age field is given on Slashdot postings, and this is not the community site we had in the 90's - it was morphed to a "Geek Culture" site to make more money by the admission of its own editors.
There are lots of folks who appreciate what we have done and understand it a hell of a lot better than you are seeing here. They are in government, and industry, and everywhere. I do more public speaking than you (I'm in Europe for that at the moment) and see a lot more of them face-to-face.
Well, it doesn't really sound like you've read the official definition, because it gives you several freedoms that are stated clearly and are beyond the simple availability of source code.. And I sure hope that not many people share your sentiment, because then "Open Source" will mean nothing and we will have handed a victory to Microsoft for no good reason.
if a license doesn't live up to what its supposed to, the community as a whole will decide what happens to the code behind it.
Well, the community you are talking about are mostly software developers and users. They don't, in general, want to parse licenses. They don't necessarily have the background. I've seen in court, as an expert witness, what happens when 99% of engineers try to parse licenses without legal counsel. They get it wrong, unfortunately.
So, we thought we'd help you with the legal stuff. And of course, like all volunteers who try to help someone, once in a while the folks who we are trying to help send us a "screw you" because they are ignorant of what we do and resent that we do it because they haven't taken the time to figure out why it is necessary.
OSI may be wrong to assume they can push around vendors to adapt to a very strict sense of "open source"
Well, if we don't have a strict definition, think of what would happen to you. Right now, you can use any software that is Open Source. As a just plain user, you don't need to read the license, you don't need to consent, you know that you can use it for any purpose because the Open Source Definition guarantees that. Now, if we loosen up what we call "Open Source", about the first thing that will happen is that it will be applied to "Educational Use Only" software. And one day you will be using that stuff without reading the license, and you'll get sued. Or we'll have Badgeware, and one day you will have a legal requirement to display 100 different logos on your web pages for all of that badgeware that it's built upon, and lawyers will get after you because your web site doesn't display the "Booted with LILO" icon and the "Preprocessed with M4" icon. Well, not those exact programs but you know what I mean.
So, the bottom line is that the strict form of the Open Source brand has value to you.Bruce
I suggest that you and I and everyone else in the community make it clear that someone is lying when they say their software is "Open Source" and their license doesn't comply with the OSD. We need to be loud about it.
can you explain exactly where you and the OSI get the authority to define what the words "open source" mean?
How do you think new words happen? People define them. So, I took that authority. And I helped to build a community behind it. And IMO, that community has a really strong interest in making it clear that anything that does not comply with the Open Source Definition isn't Open Source at all.
If I'm understanding this right, the OSI is helping the IP owners (and they DO retain ownership) pursue legal action based on the license violations.
This has nothing to do with that. FSF does help folks with that, if they ask.
This is about software with licensing that does not conform to the Open Source Definition, but claims to be Open Source. I think you can find the Open Source Definition on OSI's web site.
It's not like OSI could ever stop MS from calling Vista open source
They could make it very clear that it was a lie, and I'd expect you and the rest of the community to help with that.
it would mean OSI has gained political power. Do you want that?
Well, I have political power. I just came back from helping the government of Italy with an Open Source bill, and am on my way to Norway where I regularly meet with their government committee on this, and I do similar stuff in the US and elsewhere. Do you want that?:-)
I am OK with OSI having the "political power" to police a brand. It's not as if we're giving them control over martial law. I would hate for Microsoft to be the only one with political power who has something to say about this issue.
When I wrote the Open Source definition, Richard Stallman approved of it (in a private email) as "A good definition of Free Software". He has not written his own definition at that time. Free Software and Open Source are both names for the same thing - software licensed a particular way, and the only way they differ is that they talk about it in a different way - Open Source is a campaign directed toward business people, Free Software is not. Even RMS agrees with me on this now (we were on stage in Italy two weeks ago talking about this) although he will of course always want to be identified as a Free Software person because he feels it's most important to talk about Freedom. Once upon a time Eric Raymond did try to differentiate Free Software from Open Source, and he tried to deprecate RMS in general. That was a mistake and does not matter any longer.
Slashdot Mirror
Falconwolf, I really assure you: no brand "Open Source" existed before we created it. There were one or two uses of the words together, they didn't go anywhere, and anyway "prior art" doesn't work for trademarks as it does for patents. There is usage in another category for defense intelligence information. Did you know that "X" is a trademark? But surely, someone used "X" before it was filed :-)
That said, I'm still not sure I'm for certification of Affero 3.
Thanks
Bruce
What happens if you die with nobody to inherit? Yes, the state you live in would probably own it.
It's past midnight in Norway. I started posting on this topic in London. Another day for the public speaker :-)
Bruce
I am not at all sure this would help either Open Source or small and medium sized proprietary software developers, who I imagine are the folks they want to have doing peer review - and also the folks most in danger from Software patents. I do not at this time recommend that you participate in this at all if you are an Open Source developer, the risk of being exposed to treble damages is too high. I don't know if you should participate in this if you're even an Open Source sympathizer. It sounds too much like an effort to save a software patent system that we should be shutting down.
The only way I think it would help would be if we could entirely kill a patent application. Just fixing one only makes it more powerful.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
All of that said, I'm still not sure that OSI should certify Affero 3. Sorry, Henri. I am not on the OSI board, so I won't be the one voting. I should be on that board, but that's another story. But I'd still like to hear arguments about Affero 3 and OSI certification, so that I can get it straight in my own head.
Bruce
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
There are lots of folks who appreciate what we have done and understand it a hell of a lot better than you are seeing here. They are in government, and industry, and everywhere. I do more public speaking than you (I'm in Europe for that at the moment) and see a lot more of them face-to-face.
Bruce
Well, it doesn't really sound like you've read the official definition, because it gives you several freedoms that are stated clearly and are beyond the simple availability of source code.. And I sure hope that not many people share your sentiment, because then "Open Source" will mean nothing and we will have handed a victory to Microsoft for no good reason.
So, we thought we'd help you with the legal stuff. And of course, like all volunteers who try to help someone, once in a while the folks who we are trying to help send us a "screw you" because they are ignorant of what we do and resent that we do it because they haven't taken the time to figure out why it is necessary.
Bruce
Thank you. Can you fix it now?
So, the bottom line is that the strict form of the Open Source brand has value to you. Bruce
Bruce
How do you think new words happen? People define them. So, I took that authority. And I helped to build a community behind it. And IMO, that community has a really strong interest in making it clear that anything that does not comply with the Open Source Definition isn't Open Source at all.
Bruce
This is about software with licensing that does not conform to the Open Source Definition, but claims to be Open Source. I think you can find the Open Source Definition on OSI's web site.
Bruce
You are correct. The current registration would not interfere with a registration for a certification mark for software licensing.
I am OK with OSI having the "political power" to police a brand. It's not as if we're giving them control over martial law. I would hate for Microsoft to be the only one with political power who has something to say about this issue.
Bruce
Bruce