OSI enforcement?

[Michael Poole]

Dag-Erling Smørgrav writes:

> Arnoud Engelfriet <arnoud at engelfriet.net> writes:
>> I'll admit I'm not a US trademark lawyer (only a European trademark
>> attorney), but all the literature I've seen on the concept of OSS
>> acknowledges OSI as the origin of the phrase, or at least as the
>> central body behind the concept.
>
> Had you been so inclined, it would have taken you only seconds to
> discover that the term was in use more than ten years before the
> creation of the OSI.  One specific example referenced by the Wikipedia
> article on Open Source is its use by the NSA in a February 1987
> position paper arguing in favor of placing cryptographic software
> under ITAR.  The following excerpt from that paper was posted by Tony
> Patti to sci.crypt in a May, 1990 discussion of the availability of
> freely reusable source code for DES (the cypher, not me):
>
>    "Although software was developed from open source material,
>    the application of that information into the subject software
>    program contains cryptographic capabilities that are controlled
>    under category 13B."
>
> See http://groups.google.com/group/sci.crypt/msg/0243ee9294bdc300 for
> the full message with a link to the rest of the discussion.

Had you been so inclined, it would have taken you only seconds to
discover that Wikipedia is not always a reliable resource.

Why do you think the associativity is (open source) (material) rather
than (open) (source material)?  Especially in the context, the latter
seems more likely: "open" as opposed to export-controlled, classified,
or other limited disclosure and/or distribution material.  The phrase
"source material" is common in the context of content creation and
transformation.

(Wikipedia's other reference for prior more-inclusive usage of "open
source" is a broken link.)

Michael Poole