Re: Licensing issues (Was: [Announce] Mneson : persistent untyped graphs)

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

Maybe we need a term to use for software that is open source but doesn't 
meet the requirements of the owners of the words "Open Source"? What 
about "Sharable Software" or "Sharable Source" - implying that you get 
the source code and that you may share the software but possibly with 
some restrictions.

I agree with Marius that those who wish to lay claim to the words "Open 
Source" have *a* business model, but not the only possible business 
model. Given that the term has been in use to describe a variety of 
licenses well before anybody like the OSI decided to lay claim to the 
words, it is difficult to see how it is possible to start slapping some 
specialized meaning on it now and expect it to stick. I suppose they 
could go get a trademark on it and restrict people from sticking "Open 
Source(tm)" on their software unless it met certain criteria (or 
claiming that they have an "Ada(tm)" compiler unless it passes a 
validation suite? ;-) but that wouldn't preclude someone from using the 
words "open" and "source" next to each other in their common English 
meaning to describe the fact that the source code is open and visible to 
the user of the software.

MDC


tmoran@acm.org wrote:

>   Two common methods of signaling a special usage of a phrase are to
> enclose it in quotes, or to capitalize each word.  Neither of those was
> done in this case, suggesting the author was not trying to use the term in
> its, sometimes, special meaning.  Also, if someone wants to restrict usage
> of the phrase, they should trademark it.  Of course someone might point
> out that, prior to Inflation of the Internet, lots of software was made
> available on BBSes etc, with source.
> 
> open source open source open source open source open source open source


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Marin David Condic
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