OSI to Stand Up Against Abuse of the Term “Open Source”
Posted on June 21, 2007 by Guy Snir
Filed Under Open Source |
Michael Tiemann, president of the OSI, posted on his blog “Will The Real Open Source CRM Please Stand Up?”
Basically, the OSI wants to stop the abuse of the term “Open Source” by companies not adhering to The Open Source Definition. As the popularity of Open Source grows, more and more companies abuse the term to create market appeal.
Usually to be Open Source you would use one of the OSI approved licenses or one of the Free Software Foundation approved licenses, then being considered Free Software (and adhering to the FSF definition of Free Software).
The OSI plan is to contact companies misusing the Open Source term and requesting them to either change their license model or stop using the term.
I also run the Enterprise Open Source List, which is a catalog of professional “Open Source” software and companies that are of interest to IT professionals. As there are so many companies and products out there labeled as Open Source, I am sure that I have added non-compliant ones to the directory…
I hope that the actions of the OSI will be effective.
Guy
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