fileset without makefiles Open Source?!

[Matthew C. Weigel]

On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Russell Nelson wrote:

>  > Lately I had a discussion with someone who wants to provide source code 
>  > for his project, but without makefile(s). He intends to call it "Open 
>  > Source".
> 
> Grrrrrrrr.  Nobody has a trademark on Open Source, so he can call it
> that if he wants.

Yes.  As the OSI uses the term, I suspect that this will not be open
source, since the 'preferred form in which the programmer would modify
the program' should (IMO) include the makefiles (the entire 'build
system,' actually, other than that provided by the operating system, or
that the author expects to be provided by the operating system).

More importantly, removing makefiles seems to qualify as "deliberate
obfuscation" prohibited by the OSD (all of this from section 2, Source
Code).

So it will likely be incapable of being OSI Certified, whether it is
referred to as open source or not.  As a courtesy, it would be nice if
this person either chose to call it something else, or tried to make it
OSI Certified, out of respect for the work people are putting forth
under the banner of OSI Certified open source.
-- 
 Matthew Weigel
 Research Systems Programmer
 mcweigel at cs.cmu.edu ne weigel at pitt.edu

--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3