32 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
32 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
Is “Open Source Media” an abuse of the term?
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<p>A correspondent wrote me to<br />
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<a href='http://www.phillyfuture.org/node/2112'>object</a> to the fact that<br />
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that-which-was-Pajamas-Media has launched as “Open Source Media”.</p>
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<p><span id="more-222"></span></p>
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<p>There’s an established use of the term “open source” prior to<br />
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open-source software, it’s spook-talk (intelligence-community jargon)<br />
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for a data source that is not secret. Various media outlets<br />
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(like <a href='http://www.radioopensource.org/'>these guys</a>)<br />
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are, quite legitimately, keying off <em>that</em> sense of the<br />
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phrase.</p>
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<p>Are they, to some extent, influenced by the success and prestige of<br />
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the open-source <em>software</em> movement? Probably so…but since<br />
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neither I nor OSI has a trademark on the phrase “open source”, there’s<br />
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not much we can do about that kind of coattail-riding. It’s not even<br />
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clear that should try — better to concentrate on fighting<br />
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battles we can win.</p>
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<p>I made the decision some time back, when I was still president of<br />
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OSI, to try to jawbone people out of using the phrase “open source”<br />
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only when it would create confusion about software and software<br />
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licensing. That’s narrower ground and easier to defend. Even though<br />
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OSI doesn’t have a legal lock on the term, almost everybody recognizes<br />
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our moral right to prescribe how it is used with respect to software (even Microsoft,<br />
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interestingly enough). In every case — <em>every</em> case<br />
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— that OSI has applied pressure, abusers have backed<br />
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down.</p>
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<p>So yes, I’m not real pleased by OSM’s restrictive license, now that<br />
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it has been drawn to my attention; I do wish they had either chosen a<br />
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different name or used something like a Creative Commons license. But<br />
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I’m not going to fight them about it. They’ve got a legitimate claim on<br />
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the “spook” sense of the term, not the software sense.</p>
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