compatibility and the OSD

[Rick Moen]

Quoting rick (rick):

> You are welcome to relay to the proponents of same "counter-argument"
> my assessment that it is a transparently bogus smokescreen, as it relies 
> on willful and ultimately intellectually dishonest ignoring of context.

Out of curiosity, I just have examined same "counter-arguments" on your
Yahoo Groups archive.  Oh dear, oh dear.

  Henry Pijffers:  "Legal: no, the phrase 'open source' is free for
  anyone to use, it can't be trademarked.  For anyone."

Spot the non-sequitur.  No points.  

(Do I honestly need to spell it out?  Lack of legal authority to enjoin
you from doing the wrong thing doesn't make it right, and you will keep
hearing from people who, with good reason, object.)

Moreover, the misstatement under discussion might well injure your 
position, if cited in any legal tangles your group _does_ end up in.  

  Henry Pijffers:  [About possible image problems]   "Image: probably,
  but not necessarily, if you explain, very thoroughly, why one could 
  call it open source."

Hell, you could call it Shirley and put a wig on it -- but it still
won't be open source.

  Marius:  "open source folks see everything in black and white"

As previously noted, this special-pleading objection is pretty much
self-parodying.  OSD is a definition.  Meet it or don't, but don't 
come demanding that the OSI throw away its core concept for your 
convenience.  Furthermore, this is a distraction from the issue under
discussion, which is your group's misuse of the term "open source".

  Marius:  "open source folks... call proprietary to all non open
  source".

As previously noted, this is a simple matter of definition.  I'm sorry
you don't like it, but that doesn't change anything.  Furthermore, this
is a distraction from actual the issue under discussion, which is your
group's misuse of the term "open source".

   Henry Pijffers:  "If open source people say our licenses are
   proprietary, then public domain people might say the same about 
   open source."

1.  This is a transparent attempt to change the subject, which is your
    group's misuse of the term "open source".
2.  As a matter of definition within the software context, what 
    "public domain people might say" would be simply incorrect.
    It's possible that Pijffers is clinging to the zero-context
    meaning of "proprietary" as "subject to ownership claims",
    in which case I'd like to introduce him to the concept of 
    context.

   Henry Pijffers:  "I really fail to see why one is proprietary and the
   other is not."

1.  This is an attempt to conveniently change the subject from your
    group's misuse of the term "open source".
2.  One is proprietary and the other not as a direct consequence
    of definition within the software context.

   Henry Pijffers:  "Proprietary is where everything is closed, and with
   us that's certainly not the case."

1.  This is an attempt to conveniently change the subject from your
    group's misuse of the term "open source".
2.  That is _not_ the definition of proprietary within the software 
    context.

   Henry Pijffers:  "Maybe on a scale from fully free to fully closed
   we're a little more towards closed than open source, but they're not
   fully free either."

Completely irrelevant to the topic.


So, as expected:  willful ignoring of context, and erection of smokescreens.  

Thus, we return to:  Please fix the error.  Thank you.