On Wed, Oct 02, 2002, Ely Levy wrote about "Re: open source law?":
> You are right I missed the part where OSI became stupid and immitated FSF
> it wasn't always like that AFAIK.
> you are right OSI and FSF are the same, but opensource and fs are not the
> same by far.
> one require the program to be free one require the program to be giving
> with its sources.
> and altough OSI no longer know the diffrance law people does.
> they don't expect sun to give away solaris for free or ms to give windows
> for free they want to have the source code with it.
> even BSDI required license then suddenly they are not open source anymore?
No, BSDI was never called "open source" - it was a "source license".
As far as I know the term "open source" was invented by the same guys
running OSI ("open source initiative"). I don't remember that term being
used by anyone before them, though you are right, it might be understood
intuitively to have a different meaning, like "software which comes with
source, but you can't pass it around". This is one of the reasons that
Stallman objects to the term "open source", and one of the reasons it
was chosen in the first place (to a layman, who doesn't know what open
source really refers to, this phrase doesn't sound "communist").
In the 1999 "Open Sources" book (the Stallman quote I gave in the previous
email was from there) already discussed the "Open Source Definition", by
Bruce Perens, and it was essentially equivalent to the one they have now
on the site. The "OSI" never changed their minds or "became stupid".
If you misunderstood their "open source" definition, don't feel bad: that's
*Exactly* what Perens and his friends meant to do (see the "Remaking the meme"
chapter in O'Reilly's "Peer to Peer" book). They deliberately chose a term
that can be confused to mean something conservative and capitalistic,
instead of the term "free software" that is more easily confused (?) with
being communist, anti-business, anarchistic, left-wing liberal.
--
Nadav Har'El | Wednesday, Oct 2 2002, 26 Tishri 5763
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