Definition of open source

[John Cowan]

Rick Moen scripsit:

> It's useful, here, to haul out one of the traditional gedankenexperiments,
> that of Prof. Daniel J. Bernstein's (eventual) demise.  (I should stress
> that I wish Prof. Bernstein a very long and happy life -- as well as any
> shot at immortality he can wangle.)  

Actually, djb's demise is not a problem for maintainability, since
he doesn't object to the distribution of patches; his code is like
QPL-licensed code in that respect.  A central patch maintainer could
arise after his death that everyone used, in the same way that after
Linus's death someone will have to be keeping Linus's tree.

The reason djb's stuff isn't Open Source is his refusal to put a license
on it at all, claiming that copyright law already gives everyone all
that they need.

-- 
John Cowan  jcowan at reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com
"In computer science, we stand on each other's feet."
        --Brian K. Reid