A correspondent wrote me to
object to the fact that
that-which-was-Pajamas-Media has launched as “Open Source Media”.
There’s an established use of the term “open source” prior to
open-source software, it’s spook-talk (intelligence-community jargon)
for a data source that is not secret. Various media outlets
(like these guys)
are, quite legitimately, keying off that sense of the
phrase.
Are they, to some extent, influenced by the success and prestige of
the open-source software movement? Probably so…but since
neither I nor OSI has a trademark on the phrase “open source”, there’s
not much we can do about that kind of coattail-riding. It’s not even
clear that should try — better to concentrate on fighting
battles we can win.
I made the decision some time back, when I was still president of
OSI, to try to jawbone people out of using the phrase “open source”
only when it would create confusion about software and software
licensing. That’s narrower ground and easier to defend. Even though
OSI doesn’t have a legal lock on the term, almost everybody recognizes
our moral right to prescribe how it is used with respect to software (even Microsoft,
interestingly enough). In every case — every case
— that OSI has applied pressure, abusers have backed
down.
So yes, I’m not real pleased by OSM’s restrictive license, now that
it has been drawn to my attention; I do wish they had either chosen a
different name or used something like a Creative Commons license. But
I’m not going to fight them about it. They’ve got a legitimate claim on
the “spook” sense of the term, not the software sense.