Objective of IFSO Re: [Fsfe-ie] stuff from the past week [adelaney at cs.may.ie]
Niall Douglas
s_fsfeurope2 at nedprod.com
Sat Nov 1 18:41:27 CET 2003
On 31 Oct 2003 at 20:23, David Golden wrote:
> > The term "open source" is ambiguous enough, because one could
> > believe that the source is completely open and viewable to anybody
> > or the source is open for the intended recipient (i.e. the
> > purchaser).
>
> "Open Source" (note capitals) is quite well defined by the OSI
> Definition or DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidlines), at this stage,
> despite Microsoftie attempts to dilute the term.
The problem is that the term, irrespective of whoever defines it,
means what it means in English ie; any software is open source if it
comes with source.
Therefore MS can quite rightly argue that Windows is open source
because they'll supply you with it for a very large fee and no end of
NDAs.
Going with "open source" is a recipe for hijacking by the BSI who if
you remember during the recent software patent battle, called
themselves the "open standards" institute or something.
Cheers,
Niall
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