Microsoft use of the term "Open Source"

[John Cowan]

Chris Travers scripsit:

> In essence, the OSI does *not* claim any protection or authority over terms
> such as "open source."  In fact, the OSI's claim on the lack of authority
> over the term "open source" seems clear and unambiguous.

No *legal* authority, no.  Moral authority is another matter.  "Emacs"
is not a trademark, but of all the emacsen in the world, only the one
written by Richard Stallman, Bernie Greenberg, and Richard Stallman,
and currently distributed by the FSF, is ever called simply "Emacs".
The FSF has moral authority over that name as a matter of social fact.

Likewise, when someone misuses the term "Open Source" as applied
to software and similar things, the OSI has every right to complain
privately or if need be publicly.

> Again, violating the OSD doesn't cause a problem for calling a product "open
> source" in any real way other than political difficulties with the OSI.  See
> the Certification Page for the OSI's stance on trademark protection over the
> term "open source" (the OSI claims that "open source" is not subject to
> trademark protection).

Actually, it's the USPTO that claims that.

> Having worked at Microsoft in the past and worked with people like those who
> put the MS-RecipL and MS-PL to the OSI, I think that you have to understand
> that Microsoft is not a homogeneous entity with a singular strategy wrt open
> souce.  Any company with that number of employees is not always going to be
> able to review all decisions adequately and consistently.  So I think it is
> far better to attribute this to a division not knowing better than anything
> else.

It's true that the idea probably didn't come from Microsoft's top
management, but to argue that they are not *responsible* for everything
that Microsoft does is to say that they no longer control the company,
and ought to be removed by their board.  That's usually the last line of
defense of a CEO trying to avoid criminal prosecution, which is hardly
the situation here.

> Since OSI doesn't seem to officially claim sole control over determining
> what applications are open source or not (for example, as far as I can see,
> large parts of OpenBSD and FreeBSD use open source licenses which are not
> OSI approved),

They use extremely minor variants of well-established OSI licenses.

> it is often difficult for people in a company like Microsoft
> who are not immediately involved in the communities to understand what makes
> a program open source.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job
depends on not understanding it." --Upton Sinclair

> This is an opportunity to solve a problem not by
> asking for top-down management but rather by creating a simplified
> definition which can be used as a guideline not for approval discussions but
> for marketing.

Well, here's one (strictly unofficial):

a) Everyone has to be able to get the source code, to use it, and to
give it away or sell it either as-is or with changes.

b) Discriminating against particular types of people or lines of business
is not allowed.

c) The license can't be tied to any particular product, collection of
software, or technology.

Feel free to edit.

> Hence we should look at this as an opportunity to help make an understanding
> of what "open source" represents down to the level where people don't have
> to follow this list to avoid running into problems.  

The best way to do that is to only call works "open source" when they
are issued under OSI-approved licenses or trivial variants of them.

-- 
Normally I can handle panic attacks on my own;   John Cowan <cowan at ccil.org>
but panic is, at the moment, a way of life.      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan