On Thu, 2002-10-03 at 20:57, Michael Stolovitzsky wrote: > I have a hard time why'd we trust OSI with their definition. I doubt anyone > really coined the term, and the term itself is self-evident. That OSI tries > to redefine it and stick the free software flag in it doesn't mean we have to > comply with an attempt to abuse it. >
Michael, I advise you to learn the facts before you are talking about an issue. the term "Open Source" originates from the inteligence community and used in that context it means "coming from public sources". Some of the members of OSI (prior to founding OSI for obvious reasons) have borrowed the term as a 'marketing brand' for what was then called free software and *defined* it to mean what was then the Debian software licenses guidelines. The definition was later modified somewhat until it reached the meaning it has today. So, yes this opeople *did* coin the term and did so explcitly. You can of course offer any alternative meaning to the term as you see fit, but this is the original meaning of the term, as defined by the people who defiend it (OSI and freinds) and as most people use it. > "Open Source" only means that the software sources aren't withheld by the > authors. Remember the times when no one'd even THINK to distribute the > software in binaries without sources? That's open source. "Open Source", as *commonly understood* means more then that as people pointed out. Again, you are advise to check the facts. > > E.g: Sun distributes the source to the JDK under Sun-Community-License, > > which is definitely not Open-Source because it DOES NOT permit > > redistribution of the (possibley modified) source. > > No, it is definitely open source because its sources are open. What OSI might > or might not think about it is as irrelevant and pointless as their attempts > to abuse the English language. Kudos to OSI, but they're not the final > authority over two words that have obvious meanings themselves. It is you who is attampting to abuse a well understood term to mean what it was never meant to mean. Of course you can define 'yellow' to mean blue but this doesn't really mean anything. The usefullness of a term lies exactly in that that it has some common understood meaning. The term Open Source does have such a meaning (and therefore it is usefull) and that meaning *is not* the one you wrongly state. > Yes there is. Free as in freedom software is implicitly open source. Freeware > (free as in beer) software is distributed without a requirement to compensate > the author and might or might not be open source. Open source software is not > necessarily free or even freeware. Not the other way around. I'm least > interested in how GNU makes it sound, OSI makes it sound, Canada makes it > sound and whatnot. If RMS heared you you would be challanged to a fight of verbal abuse till death or worse.. :-) I think that you suffer from a mild condition of ignorance combined with acute inlfamation of the ego. Get a life. Gilad. -- Gilad Ben-Yossef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://benyossef.com "Geeks rock bands cool name #8192: RAID against the machine" ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
