Talk:Open source/Archive 2

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Contents

Ownership.

Who really owns anything? Only those who lay claim to it, and really, once they're dead, they don't own it anymore. So who owns it when they're dead? Others. Others who inherit it, legally or illegally. Regardless, nothing is eternally owned by someone, so nothing is entirely owned because eventually, it will be up for grabs.

So how does that affect open source ? Or did you really mean to comment on property ?

Layout & Content

After I have glared at the article for awhile, I moved some sections around to put an overall transition together. I've noticed that some sentences or paragraphic ideas are repeated several times. Redundancy is good to stress points, but it seems like the same ideas are just covered from different view points (not different point of views). The section about the participants and the model seem like that can be combined as they present the same overall idea, but one subjects the essay the other subjects the Core/Peripheral contrast. I added the search link to the related topics because there are so many related articles that it saved space. Comments? Mr. Ballard 02:50, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

OpenSource logo

does anyone know when is the logo inargurated? Xah Lee 09:17, 2005 May 8 (UTC)


M

Are the Internet standards Open Source?

I have always assumed that the Internet standards are Open Source. Or at least the basic standards. But I find nothing about that in the article. Is my assumption wrong or hasn't anyone yet thought of putting that rather interresting piece of information in it? DirkvdM 13:30, 2005 May 11 (UTC)

See Open standards. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 14:19, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

The IETF the Internet standards are Open standards. They are not Open source. (Does this article need to explain the difference ?). --DavidCary 10:37, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would want to think that something like ICANN is an Open standard but is a form of Open Source governance but still I see a tendancy to tack on open standards to closed government systems too much.

Open Source damaging to commercial market

Beachy wrote " antroduction of free software as damaging to the market for commercial software." Well, of course it is. That's how the free market works. So I removed that (and most of the rest of his edit). In retrospect, maybe it should just be put differently. Something like "free software constitutes a new form of competition that some deem 'unnatural' in the free market because it doesn't directly involve money." That doesn't sound quite right, but I don't have a problem with this new competition, so maybe I'm not the right person to put this complaint into words. With the word 'directly' I refer to the fact that free software can be used for commercial purposes. For Linux there are the distributions. And manufacturers more and more often provide free software with their products (eg editing software with cameras). Free software can be seen as a means to make money with something else. DirkvdM 08:48, 2005 May 21 (UTC)

Well, we can always quote what opponents of Open Source say. But even this "no money directly involved" is a weak argument, this is a standard strategy for complement goods. I wonder if the same people would also complain about Gillette who famously give away the razors and sell the blades. With all due sympathy for the people who find themselves on the losing side in this development, I agree these are just people complaining about competition from a legal, unsubsidized business model. Welcome to free markets. Rl 09:15, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't think any advocate of open-source will ever be able to convincingly counter the argument that free software disrupts the commercial software market. Ah well, you guys had better censor out / dilute this argument then, eh? --Beachy 16:21, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Well, yeah. Of course non-commercial software is going to disrupt the commercial software market, in much the same way the restaurant industry might be disrupted if a large franchise started giving away free food. When it comes down to the line, people would rather get their (commercial and non-commercial) software for free, if they know they have the option. The argument isn't censored or diluted in this article; the term "free software" being perceived as "anti-commercial" is mentioned (though this seems like a different matter--it's one thing to be non-commercial, but another entirely to be anti-commercial), and the Open vs. closed source section discusses the matter to some extent, though it could stand to be improved. Just how much open-source software disrupts the sale of commercial software is probably up for debate, but I think everyone can agree that there's disruption. And as far as I'm concerned, the occasional disruption is what keeps a free market innovative. -- Wapcaplet 18:37, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Be careful about "commercial", folks. A lot of Open Source software is commercial. Linux, Apache, MysSQL, and qt are all largely commercial software. What they are not is proprietary. Big difference. Rl 18:55, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Ehm...., Linux is not commercial, but the distributions are (at least the ones I know of). Commercial means money is involved and Linux (the kernel) can be downloaded for free. Right? DirkvdM 08:07, 2005 May 24 (UTC)
Most of Linux kernel development today is done by people who get paid for it by for-profit companies like IBM, HP, or Red Hat. Apparently these companies believe it to be a sound investment that helps their profits. That meets my criteria for commercial funding, even though development method and licensing aren't necessarily what we're used to. Rl 11:02, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
"occasional disruption is what keeps a free market innovative" Are you sure? I thought it was fair competition that kept a market innovative? Many people consider that Microsoft giving away Internet Explorer for free destroyed the market for other proprietary web browsers (eg Netscape). Did this help keep the market innovative?
Where did Firefox come from? It partially came about as a response to IE's dominance and fat-happy behavior of MS in not enhancing IE for a long period of time. It's certainly arguable, however, that MS removed the incentive for most commercial entities to enter or stay in the market with their proprietary browsers, with the exception of Opera. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 21:42, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)
No, the problem (at least as far as the antitrust lawsuit was concerned) was that Microsoft leveraged its monopoly on Windows to destroy its competition. Making something freely available is not the same as integrating it with another product. MSIE is not "free" in the same way that Firefox is. MSIE may be free (beer), but Firefox is free (speech). -- Wapcaplet 23:15, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Where "free as in beer" = gratis and "free as in speech" = libre.  :) — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 00:01, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
Much OSS software clones the featureset of proprietary software. Think OpenOffice, Firefox (cloning Opera) and Linux (cloning UNIX). These clones benefit from the innovation, usability testing and R&D of the proprietary software houses, but infiltrate the market with free versions of the software. This reduces the incentive for commercial innovation in the market, as more OSS cloners are likely to offer a free version almost immediately afterwards. --Beachy 21:04, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Firefox is well ahead of IE and even Opera in terms of features, especially when you consider all the available extensions and the huge extension development community it has. Also, I believe this argument to be untimely, as there are multitudes of open-source offerings today that never had a commercial equivalent. It's just that we've seen several key categories of software being commodified as people have grown resistant to the costly upgrades to "new" versions of software where new developed features are adding virtually no value in terms of what customers actually want or use. It's very clear how arguments like this are made: when people get all their news from big corporate media, they tend to focus on what the corporate media finds to be important, and it often is quite insignificant compared to the real story as a whole. Open source is far bigger than MS getting its product lines beaten up with free alternatives. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 21:42, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

Well, Open Source and innovation is a fascinating subject, and there are a number of reasons why Open Source tends to innovate more slowly than proprietary software development. However, as far as cloning is concerned, proprietary companies do the exact same thing. Microsoft invented neither the spreadsheet nor the word processor, they cloned what was already there. Neither Netscape nor Opera invented the browser, they cloned what already existed (as Open Source, incidentally). AOL didn't invent instand messaging, they cloned what others had come up with. Unix was based on ideas of older operating systems and many of the things that made it great were actually developed as Open Source software in Berkeley. — You are describing how software development has always worked, Open Source or not.

As for what Microsoft did to Netscape: You'd be surprised. Yes, when Microsoft started giving away a browser for free, that got us a lot of innovation as long as the competition between Netscape and Microsoft lasted (which wasn't that long given the means Microsoft had at hand). Innovation stopped only after Microsoft had managed to practically seal the market. Rl 21:54, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree with what you're saying in that commercial cloners do the same as OSS cloners. However, commercial cloning still 'abides by the rules' of the market, and must compete at cost. There will come a point where it is not commercially viable to clone other software because the market is saturated and the returns would not cover the costs. OSS software, on the other hand, does not abide by the same rules. It can introduce clones that needn't be commercially justifiable. In doing so, OSS removes the incentive for others to invest money in software devlepment. --Beachy 22:39, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow. Yes, OSS developers are not interrested in whether a solution is commercially justifiable. So? And if the market is saturated (do you mean by solutions or instances? - that difference really only exists in the commercial sector), then why would they put time into solving a problem that has already been solved? OSS also follows the rules of the market. It's just that cost of production is zero (it's the byproduct of a hobby) and distribution cost is also next to zero (Internet) and therefore the price is also zero. DirkvdM 08:07, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

I'd hesitate to say the cost of OSS production is zero. As noted above, much significant open-source development occurs in a commercial environment, and you could still measure the man-hours that go into any project, regardless of cost. Its predominantly zero-cost nature isn't due to low production or duplication costs, but due to the choices of its copyright holders. -- Wapcaplet 23:14, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OSI creation & Netscape strategy session

it seems that both things happened in february and the ambiguous dating makes it hard to know what happened first. i've tried to find some sort of timeline so as to solve the ambiguity but my efforts failed, perhaps someone else maybe succesful.

exactly -- both things happened. Many business and programmers published sources on usenet, and Netscape mentioned its intention to do the same. The strategy session happened, and they advertise their ideas to Netscape. Netscape made a few changes with those ideas when it finally released the sources. There is a timeline at OSI of their events.

LinkFix Dump

For more information, see: User:Ambush Commander/LinkFix dump

There aren't that many links that are awry in this article, but there are a whole lot of them to go through. Someone fixing them would be nice. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 17:02, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

LinkFix dump for "Open source", no edits made:

FLOSS % Free/Libre/Open-Source Software
Linus’ law % Linus's law
BSD % Berkeley Software Distribution
Extreme programming % Extreme Programming
Openoffice.org % OpenOffice.org
Open Source Development Labs % OSDL
Free culture % Free Culture
Free/Libre Open Source Software % Free/Libre/Open-Source Software

`

better introduction paragraph

The article currently starts

Open source means when sources of information, code, pictures, maps, authors, and everything related are all publicly viewable and openly modifiable.

The "when" and "everything" seems to imply that "open source" is some distant time and/or place when all information is public, something like a gift economy or transparent society is a description of some distant time and/or place.

But I think of "open source" as refering to certain things that already exist now. It's an attribute of "something", not a description of an environment.

Also, consider the situation where I sell some product, and I bundle the source code with that product -- but I don't give the source code away free by itself to "the public". The "publicly viewable" seems to imply this product is not "open source", but (my interpretation of) "the" definition of open source seems to say this product is open source.

To fix those flaws, I changed the first paragraph to say

Something is open source when it includes everything needed to make improvements to it. In particular, open-source software includes a copy of all the source code. Open source hardware includes the CAD drawings necessary to build another copy. Also, "open source" typically implies that the source is licenced under terms that allow a person to legally sell it or give it away to others, without any fee or royalty.

But that was reverted.

I would welcome any other suggestions on how to fix those flaws. (Or am I just mistaken on those points?) --DavidCary 19:42, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I believe the replacement to be far less precise than what was there before, and also includes a needless reference to open source hardware. I welcome enhancements to the existing opener, of course, but less precision is the wrong direction. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 20:03, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
It appears the confusion starts when open source understood only as a tangible attribute to software, but it is simplier and more general in its full meaning. Mr. Ballard 20:42, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Would you agree that "open source hardware" is one kind of all "open source" stuff ? --DavidCary 10:37, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I tried making changes to the opening paragraph also, and they were reverted by Jhballard. I'm moving the conversation here from Open source (disambiguation). My comments follow his —Pengo

There is still confusion with "open source" that newbies think it means software, which is not only what it means. We should not give a definition that only includes software and excludes all other products. That would be npov. Here is the definition by Pengo:

denotes that a product includes permission to use its source code, design documents, or origins.

Note that "source code" is a form of "origins," so it is redundant.

Here is the broader npov version:

denotes that the origins of a product are publicly accessible in part or in whole
--- Mr. Ballard 20:24, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Saying "source code, design documents, or origins" is redundant, yes, but also makes it clearer. It's not POV, it's general usage. Source code is the meaning 99.9% of the time, so it should be mentioned early. Where as "origins" is overly broad and ambiguous. (Are the origins of Linux in Finland?) Also the "npov version" is inaccurate. The source code (or "origins") does not need to be publicly accessible. Under GPL, for example, they only need to be offered with the software to the recipient of that software and no one else. So in summary:

  1. The current "npov" version is inaccurate
  2. There is no harm in redundancy for the sake of clarity.
  3. "Origins" is not a common term and would need to be clarified anyway.

I quite like DavidCary's version also. The ability to improve (as well as study, modify and redistribute) are what make something open source. It's not so much about the public having access to the source/"origins", as being legally able to use them.

In a perhaps related note, I really think the "open source" article should be moved to "open source software" and a separate "open source" or "open source concept" page should be made to describe the 0.1% of other uses. I don't need to click "what links here" to know the vast majority of links to "open source" are from articles describing software.

—Pengo 03:38, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

I've also remarked that there should be two articles: "open source" and "open-source software". Perens wasn't able to patent the term, which suggest the term was widely in use otherwise. In fact, in the annoucement by Raymond, there is mention of another kind of "open source," which is open-source intelligence, or OSINT. That kind of open source is not about improvement of the product, but is about distribution, unclassification, make information non-secret, share trade source between governments, and the access to that information. This is why we have come to use "publically accessible," as it fits both the software and the intelligence areas of open source. If you take a look at the about page as OSS.NET, you'll notice some links about the history of open-source intelligence. There you'll see that "open source" doesn't mean just software 99.9% of the time since 1992.

We can improve computer programs without its sources. It is easier with the sources. Essentially, all computer programs are distributed with source code, which could be the machine instructions. Not all programs start from machine code, as they are compiled from another program language. There is why we use the term "origins" instead of just "source code." I'm sure a discussion of these issues are worthy for the main article.

--- Mr. Ballard 20:31, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

jhballard keeps removing the following sentence from the introduction:

The term was coined in 1998 as a new label for free software.

His latest reversion was justified by saying that this is discussed in a "more npov way" in the Terminology section. I don't think this is reasonable.

First of all, the term "open source" (at least, in its application to software as described in the article) was self-consciously coined as a replacement for "free software" by Raymond et al.—this seems an indisputable fact[1], and as such can hardly be "POV".

Second, the introduction should be a brief summary of the article, and is redundant almost by definition. The question of what should go into the introduction is determined by what is most important (see Inverted pyramid). How the usage in question was coined, and its close relationship to free software, are hard to dispute as among the most important things to know about the term.

—Steven G. Johnson 21:46, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

I moved the disucssion around a bit to bring to same debate together. Please look at my response just before yours, Stevenj. You'll notice that I added facts that open source is known to have ground elsewhere besides software. An article that specifically presents only open-source software is worthy of such sentence in the opener (or lead section). It appears there is confusion between the introductory sentence of a paragraph and the introduction as in the opener (or lead section). The insert of the sentence is welcomed if you can correct the syntax. It doesn't make a good instroduction for that paragraph that gives an exmaple of what makes software open source. It would make a good introduction sentence for a paragraph about how the label came about in 1998 from the strategy session, and that exists in Terminology. We also need the lead section for this "open source" article to handle any history of "open source" like OSINT. There is no need for the article "open source" to be dominated by open-source software only.

--- Mr. Ballard 22:48, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

I split the article into open source and open-source software. This should make things easier between the two. --- Mr. Ballard 23:48, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Great! I'm sure the debates will still continue, but thank you. —Pengo 00:41, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Also there's now 1500+ articles that link to open source that should almost all be linking to open-source software. Rather than fix all the links individually (and continue fixing links as future articles link to open source instead of open-source software), could we make "open source" be a redirect to "open source software" and rename the plain open source page to "open source (concept)" or similiar? (everything with apropriate disambiguation notices of course). "(concept)" doesn't sound great, so any other suggestions/comments? What actually unites the different meanings of "open source"? They seem quite distinct. Perhaps just using open source (disambiguation) would be better? —Pengo 01:11, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed many links with open-source software instead of open source, so I wasn't worried to go fix those links that pointed to open source when it should have linked to open-source software. It'll work out without any need to redirect open source. --- Mr. Ballard 02:08, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Divisions of Open Source

I've just recategorised the open source (disambiguation) page to try and get a grasp on the different areas covered by the term open source and what should go in an open source article. I've come up with the following areas:

  1. Products (software, hardware, music, documentation)
  2. Licensing
  3. Society and culture (community)
  4. Processes (development model, comittees, goverance)
  5. Intelligence

The first 4 are related: Open source software is licensed with an open source license, developed with an open source development model by members of the open source community, and that's all very smurfy. The term open source has then broadened in the areas of processes, products and possibly licenses. Comittees that are unrelated to open source software may use an open source model. Similiarly there are more products than just software that have become open source (eg hardware), by using its licenses, or new ones that fit better (like creative commons for music). So a good "open source" article should cover all these points including the broadened meanings of open source when relating to processes and products. The current article does not give much treatment to products, and still focuses mainly on software (understandably, considering its fresh split from "open-source software").

Open Source Intelligence is not a related term (as also stated in its article), and should not be included in an "open source" article except as a disambiguation notice.

I hope this gives some guidance to anyone crazy enough to try cleaning up this mess.

As a side note, I'd like to stress again that the source code does not need to be publicly accessible in open source software. Under GPL, for example, the source code only needs to be offered with the software to the recipient of that software and to no one else. The source code typically is publicly accessible, which is culturally important, but not a strict part of open source.

—Pengo 02:46, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll have to repost my suggested outline, as something happen to when I saved it -- it didn't. Until then, I haven't seen any argument to why OSINT should be excluded, and I'll change the opener to reflect it so that it is not based so heavily on open-source software, which there is an article open-source software for such information. Here is the version now:

Open source denotes a product (typically software) whose source or design is open for modification and redistribution; a license used to give such permission; a radically transparent procedure or process; or that which relates to open source (especially to open-source software) such as the open source movement and culture.
The advantage of open source is to let the product be more understandable, modifiable, duplicatable, or simply accessible. Software developers publish their software product as open source so anybody may also develop the same software or understand how it works. Open-source software generally allows anybody to make a new version of the software, port it to new operating systems and processor architectures, share it with others or market it.
Information agencies make their products, usually a collection of information, as open source when they translate the informational text to different languages, which makes it more accessible to a larger audience.

"Open source" is the same as "accessible origins," but the later is not as catchy as the former. It doesn't need to be any more complex than that.

--- Mr. Ballard 04:37, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

It is more complex than that. In software, "Open source" is a technical term with a specific meaning that is more specific than just "accessible origins". All other meanings, except for "open source intelligence" stem from (or broaden) that specific, technical meaning, or come from the culture around it.
Open source intelligence uses different meanings of both "open" and "source". In OSINT: open means available to the public and permission to make derivate works is irrelevant, in OSS it means available to the recipient of the product with explicit permission to make derivative works. In OSINT "source" means "source of information", in OSS it means "source code". OSINT does not prescribe a license or licenses. OSS does. Further, OSS and OSINT were neither derived from the other nor inspired by the other. They are different things, common in name only! Putting them together requires forcing a square peg into a round hole. —Pengo 05:52, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

"Open source" does not mean "Publicly Accesible"

I'd like to stress again (again) that the source code does not need to be publicly accessible in open source software. Under GPL, for example, the source code only needs to be offered with the software to the recipient of that software and to no one else. The source code typically is publicly accessible, which is culturally important, but not a strict part of open source.

Mr. Ballard, please stop reverting the article to say otherwise. If you don't understand, see the The Desert Island test and The Dissident test in Debian Free Software Guidelines for examples of how open source software (or free software) does not need to be publicly accessible. The same applies to other open source and open content licenses.

If you wish to make improvements to the article, work with what is there and improve it. Do not try to bulldoze it down for when you're ready to work on it.

Open source in the sense of 'open source intelligence' is the only sense where this does not apply.

—Pengo 01:23, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. I typed a long explaination, but it didn't save. What we need to see is your sources of information for why you think open source means the way you understand it. From what I see so far, you stress the open source begins and revolves around open-source software. That is not true. Open source type products started way before the words were suggested for use with software in 1998.

Open source means accessible origins. It doesn't have anything with its phrase that limits its means to software or licenses. Those are just products of open source that are also tools of open source to encourage or control open source.

In your examples, I see you refer to the debian guidlines and the GPL. That suggests to me that you only want to limit open source to such origin, which is POV since the term open source has beeen used by many other fields besides computer software. I do not agree to limit open source to just software history or to limit its means because OSS is popular and cut out the rest. That would not be encyclopediac.

--- Mr. Ballard 04:51, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I must plead ignorance. Other than "Open Source Intelligence" and possibly "open source governance", I have not seen the term used outside of computing, or in ways unrelated to the OSS meaning. The disambiguation page sheds little light, and google won't give anything other than software related links. If there are other meanings that have been in common use, then this article should be moved to open source (computing), and the 1500+ articles that link to "open source" from software and OSS culture articles should be changed to "open source (computing)".

I'd be great if you could write about those other uses, but in the field of computing "open source" is definitely not synonymous with "publicly accesible".

Also you talk about open source as a thing (noun), rather than like an adjective. Can you expand on that too. What is open source? Thanks.

—Pengo 07:51, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Consider the the computer field is dominated by software, that is the reason why OSS appears the "best known" within the computer field and about open source. However, it is just the most popular at the moment since its movement is strong with software. We don't need an "open source (computing)" page.

Also consider the parrelism between Netscape (a web browser), open source (the software of the browser), and the Internet (or , the world wide web) all suddenly became mainstream between 1995 and 2000. A lot of people want to believe the Internet started at 1995, and they haven't known anything else. That is like how you stated you haven't known elsewise, so I wonder if your of that crowd? Have you even studied the open source pragmatism well before 1995 -- even well before the event of the famous Internet (UUCP) worm? Well, wikipedia is very advanced with more information than a hardback encyclopedia, but continues to implore forgiveness for its naiveness. 1998 was the year where many many developers finally decided to follow one set of terminology, "open source," instead of tons of unique terms and phrases coined by the best hacker communities that weren't ever widely accepted. More later... I want to put some history of it into the open source article, where it doesn't really fit open-source software as we known now (as you, Pengo, write about very well).

--- Mr. Ballard 14:12, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

> Advocates of closed source argue that since no one is responsible for > open-source software, there is no way to know whether it has been > fixed.

What if there IS a single company/organization/person responsible for the open-source software? Like Firefox for example.