compatibility and the OSD

[Henry Pijffers]

Since Rick quoted me, I feel obliged to react. See below.

Rick Moen wrote:
 >
>   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.)
> 
I only said that legally speaking anyone can use the phrase 'open 
source' for anything they want to. I didn't say it was either right or 
wrong, did I? That's only your (wrong) conclusion.

>   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.
> 
It can, in certain cases, in certain circumstances. But I'm not going to 
try and explain that to you, since obviously you're not a person that 
can be reasoned with in a normal manner, without reverting to strong 
talk and trying to make the other look like an idiot.

> 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".
>
Personally, I still don't see the misuse. The only place the term 'open 
source' is mentioned is on the group site, which says:

"The SDC is the community of open source developers who want to be 
monetarily rewarded for the commercial use of their work."

Well, all members are open source developers (which isn't intended to 
mean that all they produce is open source software!). What's the 
problem? We're not saying that our licenses are open source licenses, 
and we're not saying that any software mentioned on the group site is 
open source software.

>    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".
 >
No, that is a reaction to something you said:

" This error of strongly implying that your proprietary licensing is 
open source" has been brought to your attention previously."

Please stick to the subject yourself, thank you.

> 2.  As a matter of definition within the software context, what 
>     "public domain people might say" would be simply incorrect.
 >
I know that would be incorrect. What you say about proprietary licenses 
is also simply incorrect, so what are we talking about?

>    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".
 >
No, just more reaction to what you said earlier.

> 2.  One is proprietary and the other not as a direct consequence
>     of definition within the software context.
> 
Black and white all over again. Just because our licensing/software is 
not open source (which in certain cases and circumstances remains open 
to debate) doesn't mean it's proprietary. We're between fully open 
source and proprietary.

>    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".
 >
Again, a reaction to what you said earlier.

> 2.  That is _not_ the definition of proprietary within the software 
>     context.
> 
Proprietary software: any closed-source material which fundamentally 
means that the user does not control what it does or cannot study or 
edit the code.

With our software, one can study the code, one can edit the code, and 
one can control what it does. One can redistribute it. All things one 
can't do with proprietary software, so I'd hesitate to say that our 
software is proprietary.

>    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.
> 
Since that was (again) only a reaction to what you said, your remark 
wasn't exactly relevant either.

> So, as expected:  willful ignoring of context, and erection of smokescreens.  
> 
Just because certain people choose to be ignorant, that doesn't mean 
we're erecting smokecreens.


Last, if you quote me, would you please quote me in full? I also said:

"I myself am for not using open source at all."

And by "open source" I meant the term.

regards,
Henry Pijffers