How Open is Open Source Really? 151
jg21 writes to tell us that several industry leaders have chimed in with a response to Nat Torkington's recent piece "Is 'Open Source' Now Completely Meaningless". In the original piece Torkington raised the question of whether the term "open source" had lost any meaning because of companies that use the label yet largly restrict user interaction. Sun's Simon Phpps chimed in by stating: "I see open source as a term relevant to the way communities function and I'd support the reunification of the terms 'Free' and 'open source' around the concept of Free software being developed in open source communities. On that basis it's not dead."
Verbiage (Score:2, Interesting)
-uso.
Extreme open source (Score:4, Interesting)
In the original piece Torkington raised the question of whether the term "open source" had lost any meaning because of companies that use the label yet largly restrict user interaction.
Just because some people disagree with or don't understand the term "open source" doesn't mean it becomes worthless. All it means is that some people don't quite get it yet.
It's like the word "extreme", which marketing has over the last few years beaten to death. Extreme doesn't mean anything anymore to most people - the mind simply edits it out. But that doesn't mean that the word is suddenly broken. It still means what it means, it's just that we're desensitized to the word through repeated misuse.
It's much the same way with open source. When you repeatedly misuse the term, it loses meaning. A good example is everybody's favorite, Microsoft. They use the term as a negative. [com.com] Then turn around and use it as a positive [nwsource.com], albeit in a somewhat misunderstood way.
Re:Open Source means you get the code, that's it (Score:5, Interesting)
Their idea of how they were an opensource company was because they used php to develop code, and, because when a site was written they gave the client ownership of the code.
No matter how much we employees tried to explain that didn't make us an opensource company the powers that be refused to listen. It was made worse by the fact that the president of the company was invited to DC to testify on the benefits of opensource.
Our contracts even stated that code developed in our own time was the property of the company, and the company policy was that no code developed could be released to the opensource community at large.
It can be really frustrating to have such a loose term as 'opensource' where a company can choose to interpret it in such a way as to benefit them and no one else, or companies that simply fail to understand the concept.
OSS is meaningless therefore Microsoft should (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.cooltechzone.com/Departments/Columns/W
This is not a joke but it seems to fit the general thrust of this article.
There are a number of questions the need answering
1) Why would Microsoft really want to buy Linux?
2) If OSS is meaningless what would Microsoft get from buying it
3) Could they acquite RH, NOVELL, Mandriva, Debian, Ubuntu etc etc?
4) Could they acquire the rights to the software contained in a typical distro?
5) Why would they want to buy something that is free?
My albeit simple take on this is Patents!
The FUD eminating from Redmond and these articles all aim to discredit Linux and FOSS in general.
If Microsoft is violating patents held by OSS companies then buying them would quietly make the issue go away.
No kidding! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Amen! (Score:4, Interesting)
For MS, this involves building a product, calling it a de facto standard and then trying to get it approved formally by a standards body. This is irregardless of the fact that MS allows basically *ZERO* industry participation in developing their 'standards' before they are submitted for approval.
Re:who invented open source? (Score:2, Interesting)