Talk:Open source/Archive 3

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Contents

Coinage of the term

There are references to "Open Source" (as in software) at least as early as 1994 according to google groups, the way the article is written makes it sound like the term was just invented in 1998, rather than simply adopted from a set of already used terms. Nathan J. Yoder 17:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

There is much confusion between open source and the more specific open-source software. When the this article was heavy on open-source software, its main date centered on 1998. I seperated out the specific open-source software in order to focus on open source besides just software. It needed to be reworked, but the edit by user:janizary on october 11th cut out much and without discussion, which took out some key points. It be good to have a few of those google group links for historical reasons.
I removed the software specific parts because those parts are already linked to through the open source software link. I have marked the starting paragraph with the 1990s a couple times as the origins of the term open source with relation to software because of this earlier usage of the term. Janizary 17:20, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Technical limitation tag

How exactly is the failure of the title to use a lowercase "open source" a technical limitation? It isn't a word that's always spelled starting with a lowercase letter, like "eBay". Ken Arromdee 21:28, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

agreed -- tag removed ---- Mr. Ballard 22:38, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps, but it is open source, and without being sure people notice this they will make assumptions based on Open Source, which is the term used by the OSI to describe their counter to the FSF's Free Software. I'll reremove it based on your opinions though I feel that I'll have to expand the article to mention the difference between Open and open. Janizary 17:24, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
There is no trademark on "open source" or "Open Source". There is no difference between the words. ---- Mr. Ballard 22:29, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
The lack of trademark is irrelevant, the OSI calls what they like "Open Source", while open source is a broader term. One is a specific term used by a specific organisation while the other has a more inclusive meaning. I call that a difference. Janizary 22:38, 15 October 2005 (UTC)


Recent cut and edit of text

Janizary made a major cut and edit of the text. I don't quite agree with most of the changes, but I want to work with it. We need to merge some of the details of the previous revision back in. They state examples that make it clear what open source is all about even it is heavily ridden with software issues. I already removed some specific software issues from the split of the article into open source and open-source software. ---- Mr. Ballard 22:44, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Opener

Here is Janizary's latest revision of the opener. I don't agree with it. I have cut it out but left all the other changes Janizary made. I Janizary's didn't improve it.

Open source is a term that used to describe the concepts of allowing for immediate and open access to the sources of information and data used in the creation and organization of knowledge. Also referred to as "open content" or "free culture," it has been strongly supported by advocates of open-source software. Regarded by some as a philosophy and by others a pragmatic methodology for the development and production of products which promotes the access to their sources in order to expand the product's usefulness.
Developers and producers used many different phrases or jargon words before the open source label became widely adopted, as the early Internet years provided a rapid convergence of very diverse production models. With the increase of interactive communities and their direct involvement with the Internet, open-source software yielded the most prominent society of open source. Though the Internet started in 1969 with open standards like the RFCs, it wasn't until the 1990s that open source became a label to denote to software the same effort which began the Internet. This open source development method allows different agendas and approaches to be used in production and contrasts with more isolated development techniques.

Open source is not a concept, as it is in actual practice. It isn't "open content" or "free culture," as those are derived more directly from the open-source software society. Open source applies more to more than just development, so "development methods" isn't an improvement over "models." There are other issues. I felt we could edit them and argue them here if needed, especially since the previous versions had some major edits without any discussion. ---- Mr. Ballard 22:44, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with JhBallards' point that open source is not a unique concept. sharing ideas and knowledge has been around since humans have learned to communicate with each other. this is not something that even deserves an article. Fsdfs 05:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
It is in practice with the proof a concept long past. Anotherwords, it not just a concept. It is real. It is also different than the basic ideas to share knowledge. It has a structured model to follow. You say it's been around for a long time, but why haven't we seen anybody create an Open-Source Vehicle? What automanfacture would dare to open source their blueprints for their vehicles to allow any other business to make an engine for their vehicle body? It's not just about software. ---- Mr. Ballard 02:02, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I would also like to suggest adding to the intro that it's not just a production standard but also a consumer right to own completley what they purchase with no strings attached to a cetain degreee of reality of course hence free software. The whole point of the movement is to ensure when you purchase the product with money or not that you actually own it and have full rights to use it the way you see fit. Also this is not public or completely communist where the owner looses his designs. Yes he must share BUT it states in the GNU that you cannot copy or pretend that the original software is yours if you modify or resell. So your specs are out there but you own the original design concept whuile the consumer owns the product. These Open source people consider this fair and reasonable. -anon1

Category

We need a category for a higher level the Category:Free software, something to tag all projects with the open source nature - from Linux through Wikipedia to BIOS.What do you think about using Category:Open source for this? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:37, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Could there be a catagory for open source and then under that catagory have a link to open-source software to avoid duplication. ---- Mr. Ballard 13:36, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
What about Copyleft? I am getting a bit confused between open source and copyleft now... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 14:58, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Copyleft refers to open source licenses like the GPL which are "viral" in nature, they require redistribution of modifications to the source code. Copyleft is open source, but open source is not necessarily copyleft, so such a categorization would be inappropriate. The general category "open source" sounds fine, that encompasses all licenses. Nathan J. Yoder 15:30, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we should actually have a category for Open source specifically rather than all going into the Free software category because there are various things that are open source but not what the free software foundation call free. Open source is a super-set of Free software, not the other way round. The distinction between the two is made by both camps, so we should have categories that reflect this too. Also there are topics such as Open design that happily sit in the Open source category, but not Free software as it is not software. CharlesC 14:28, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

But open source is not a super-set of free software. This is a widely held misunderstanding. The two concepts are sets with a 99.9% overlap, but neither contains the other (diagram: [1]). One example of something in the free software set that is not in the open source set is the Netscape Public License. FSF say it's free software [2], but Open Source Initiative reject it. (That's assuming FSF and Open Source Iniative are accepted as being authorative.) Gronky 14:50, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, sure, and understood, but I think my original point still stands - and that is that I believe the 'Open design' article should be a member of a category called 'Open source' and not be automatically changed to 'category:Free software' by a bot! I think we need some flexibility in the system in order to solve this... CharlesC 22:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
One thing we can probably agree on easily is that the size of the problem isn't so great and we can afford to wait until a clean solution presents itself. The Open Design article starts off talking about there being a movement, but if you put "open design movement" into the major search engines you don't even get one full page of hits.
Another point to keep in mind is that Open Design (to the extent that it exists), was inspired by the philosophy of royalty-free transparency, collaboration, and cooperation. This philosophy is a combination of two ideas (1) freedom to cooperate, (2) using digital communication technology (such as the Internet) for inclusive collaboration. The first idea was popularised in 1983 by the GNU project, the second idea was popularised in 1991 by the Linux project. In 1998, a group of people announced a plan to "relable"[3] this philosophy and development model as "open source", and they set up a body to act as "a marketing program for free software."[4] The new label is quite popular at the moment, but that doesn't make it incorrect to say that Open Design was inspired by free-software philosophies (by that term I don't mean "FSF philosophies" or "GNU philosophies", I mean philosophies which grew out of the free software community, such as the GNU project and the Linux project).
That said, if I've failed to explain my second point in this short space, then I'll fall back on my first point. Gronky 13:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that you are right in that it is not currently a massive problem. :) I am very much aware of what you say in your points above but history, politics and philosophy aside, I just happen to prefer the term open source. I'm happy to leave things as they are though. CharlesC 20:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Here is an idea for a hierarchy:

  • Open source
    • Open-source software
      • Netscape
      • Free/Libre/Open-source software
        • ...
      • ...
    • Free software
      • Free software licenses
      • ...
    • Open-source licenses
      • OSI approved
      • ...
    • (and other open-source items besides software)...

OSI does not control open source itself, but they do approve open-source licenses by their definition. — Dzonatas 15:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I see organisational flaws in that hierarchy, but such details are irrelevent compared to the larger issue which is that I don't believe that there exists a super-grouping (by any name) which encompasses what you seem to be proposing for this "open source" category. It's hard for me to say that though, since you haven't defined what you propose for inclusion in this category. I think your refraining from definition was by necessity (rather than choice), and the reason is in my first statement: no natural definition can be given because the super-grouping doesn't exist. Gronky 16:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Your right, and I doubt there is a perfect hierarchy. The problem is that "open source" was heavily used to mean open-source software rather than the philosophy or the methodology. Based on methodology alone (not philosophy), the "super-group" works to generally categorize the efforts over time. Those efforts are where you can find the natural definition you've sought. What do you propose? — Dzonatas 20:28, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
For the moment, I don't have a proposal, and I think we can afford to continue without a proposal for a while (for the reasons given in my above 3-paragraph reply to CharlesC). One alternative hierachy I thought of was "Collaborative development" (methodology), but then again, people can write open source software without collaborating. Maybe there is no hierachy and we're just trying to jam a square into a circle. Gronky 13:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

This article sucks

Come on, it's been over 4 years that this project has used the Gnu/Linux operationg system (which is free software), and we can't even apply NPOV to describing the difference betwee free software and open source software?

Forget about which philosophy is "right". Just tell us readers what the differences are between them!

Stallman and his gang want credit for what the did. Whether you think the deserve it or not, it's what they want. So just say that RMS claims to be the granddaddy of sharable software and that he says that his movement did most or nearly all of the work that made it possible for Torvalds to develop Linux.

And anyone else who claims anything different can get their say, too. Uncle Ed 21:16, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Really people, this shouldn't be that hard. If you really feel you are right, then just tell the straight facts and let the reader make up their mind. If you're so right, they'll obviously agree with you. --Lewk_of_Serthic 21:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually RMS created the whole thing, he is the mastermind behind it all. Frap 15:32, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Open content

Should this page link to Open content? If it does, please link to it! Frap 15:31, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Criticisms of Open Source

Should this article contain any dialogue regarding the criticisms of the Open Source concept? One example that springs to mind is Blender; the interface dictated that it was commercially unsuccesful, however, after being expanded upon by open-source development, the resultant software is still plagued by poor interface design that frustrates users, making it difficult to use the powerful software behind the interface.

Other problems worth noting could be the lack of documentation surrounding active development that makes it difficult to utilize a product to its full potential.

Perhaps this has already been mentioned, or there is a better forum for bringing it up; I myself am not well-versed or articulate enough to express a significant or valuable dialogue on the topic - I am merely aware that such criticisms exist and perhaps should be acknowledged. - 24.67.20.3

Sounds more like an open-source software related issue. — Dzonatas 05:38, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Reverted edits to government section

I just reverted an edit by 24.13.183.187 that added the following text to the government section:

Usually these groups are considered non-profit or non-governmental meaning: not linked to a government or it’s billing system or at least in the most minimal amount of way, as most groups ask for donations. Organizations or ‘Orgs’ seem to create a more direct environment of debate and action on a more more individual-specialized basis and are usually, if even more tightly linked to the environments they represent. Example the Electronic Frontier Foundation which is mostly connected to North American Internet or digital interests while The Open Rights Group is more connected to Europe but offers similar services. One of the earliest and most popular Blogs on the Internet, The Whatever, uses an EFF logo on his site to help promote and protect blogger’s rights. EFF also uses and consults with lawyers.

That didn't seem appropriate, consistent, etc. for the gov. section. Joseph Lorenzo Hall 17:02, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Why not appropriate? The whole point of Open Source government is to not be encumbered by a closed group or governments and policies. The groups I mention are completely open and modeled on an open standard. Why does Open source only have to be involved with semi-closed governments like The U.S. and European Union for instance? I don't consider governments who tax 'Open source.' Am I wrong? Open software doesn't tax. Also Open Source Government is merit based and not based completely on one political style. Also EFF was deleted, this is a prime example of a fully Non-Profit Open source governing body or ‘watchdog’ group, rather then a closed government using open source methods only. I'm very surprised someone would just go in there and delete all references to EFF. Before someone does major deletes they should talk about it. -anon1

revert edits to history section

I just reverted edits by 12.147.6.123 that added (amongst other things):

Since the dawn of man and its economic system most products and government systems were developed and maintained in a somewhat open source manner to a certain extent though when disruptions in the supply chain occur. Open source methods were always pursued as a means to an end for the furtherance and goodwill for that generation and generations to follow so society could generally get along and produced what was needed at any given moment rather then have a 'locked in' limitation that might threaten an ecosystem's survival. This was especially true in the case before major advances in technology and the Internet where most societies were very isolated from their outside worlds and had access to a limited source of substance so interacting with an outside resource in an uninhibited ‘open’ way was vital.
Today in the Post Industrial Information age allot of that has changed but certain foundational elements remain true. Now even more open methods of transaction can occur almost completely bereft of any outside influence or impediment over the Internet and other automobile tech. Also with this new environment come certain negative reaction of demanded control over the ecosystem though things like Vendor Lock In and extreme private ‘closed’ systems or even a too public system that many Open Source advocates call unfair and unrealistic to the betterment of society as a whole. Open source does not necessarily mean completely public as too much of a public system can take away the original creator of the products rights thus the Creative Commons provides a separate contract where certain rights are reserved. Open source tries to achieve a comfortable balance between private and public systems so as not to hold on to one politically ideology too much over another like communism vs capitalism.

this doesn't improve the article much, no? -- Joseph Lorenzo Hall 21:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I just tacked that on becase there were only references to software. Probably too much. -anon1

Where is the discussion about splitting OS and OSS articles?

Can anyone point me to where the discussion which lead to "open-source software" being split into a seperate article took place? I've looked a few times, but I can't find it. Thanks. Gronky 16:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

What do you propose? The conversation is above, in and about the intro paragraph and divisions of open source. — Dzonatas 20:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying that. That's a surprisingly sparse conversation. The first use of the word "split" on this page is in a sentence "I split the article". I'm not convinced the split was a good idea. I'm not proposing anything, but I was just hoping to read what convinced others that it was a good idea. Gronky 12:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Open source vs Public domain

After I noticed several attempts to show how open source is equal to some form of community-collaboration, I wonder if it helps to explain the difference between public domain and open source. We have articles for open source vs. free software and open source vs. closed source, which are mainly software based. Public domain is kind-of a usage license itself, while open source does not imply such a specific usage license. — Dzonatas 20:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Public Domain seems similar, as the original author still has rights but doesn't control the work completley. I am not toatally sure. To me Open Source standards seem better because they are not linked to any one government to add to the confusion. -anon1

Link Spamming

This article seems to attract an inordinate share of links to various bloggers' opinions and tiny websites looking for publicity. Is there a consensus on what's worth keeping in the External Links section?Elijahmeeks 16:58, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

There are those that are open source related and may at least extend the knowledge about open source itself. Some "action" websites may be appropriate, but we don't want to pick-n-choose favorites. Are there any in particular question that are hard to judge by guideline?
I'm going to continue to yank out any bounty sites, which are just trying to generate traffic. I don't think they're hard to judge, I just wanted to see if anyone had a good reason not to.Elijahmeeks 00:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Looking over the history, the two sites in "question" are actually well-known OSS sites. I believe both of them have been slashdotted/digged numerous times. Bounty County is a site that maintains aggregate data on the state of various bounties that exist for OSS, while Bounty Source is a free project management (bug tracking, feature requests) site that seems to be a modernized Source Forge... In my opinion both of these sites reflect the OSS community and would benefit someone who wishes to know more about F/OSS.
They don't add any knowledge to the discussion of open-source. They're for finding projects to take part in and they don't even compare to similar but more acknowledged sites like, say, Sourceforge.Elijahmeeks 06:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be any other objections here about the links. — Dzonatas 14:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Weasels and weasels and weasels, oh my

"Regarded by some", "was chosen" (by some unspecified group), "many consider" and "many claim", and some critics do something too, etc. Badly needs at least a few attributions and references and suchlike. NicM 08:37, 10 February 2006 (UTC).

The philospohical issues are presented by a few organizations compared to the many people who actually use it in a pragmatic way, like in software development. How would we solve this. I know there are sources, but they don't directly state this kind of comparison. What do you find? We can change these to "there are" forms. Also see open source movement.— Dzonatas 21:51, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

For organizations, how about representatives of the organizations putting the point of view, and official statements from the organization? It is fine to contrast them: "X says A, but in contrast, Y asserts B". If people really use and discuss this, there will be magazine articles and comments and opinion pieces about it. "There are" is no better, it is still completely unsourced and therefore unverifiable. NicM 23:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC).
I see your point about the representatives. That idea fits within the body while the opener above summarizes it. Before this article was split up, it did contain more of those views. I suggested to merge some of it back in. Also, a quick search on google for "open source" and either "pragmatic" or "philosphical" gives over 14 million hits each. There is quite of bit of talk about it, so it is not completely unsourced. The expressions themselves are verifiable, but the quantifiers need to be sourced. I found the comparisons based on the facts that there are many software developers that work with open-source software even if those developers don't follow the philosophy (i.e. they just restrict themselves to the license). Then there are those that just use open-source products. Since the split, this article now includes more details then just software. What do you propose? — Dzonatas 16:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
I propose that the article should be restructured so that every point of view is presented neutrally and preferably attributed to at least one organization or individual, per WP:WEASEL. Verifiable does not mean "the reader can type it into google" it means there are sources listed in the article and each viewpoint has an attribution or explanation of who says it and where it comes from. With 14 million google hits, there should be absolutely no problem finding sources for any viewpoint you care to name. I know this subject is widely discussed on the internet, so there must be tons and tons of material to work with... what about a few Perens or ESR quotes? or from some of the Debian guys? what about Microsoft, what have they said about open source philosophy? I bet they spend a lot of time badmouthing it and saying it is anti-commercial in spirit. IBM and Sun and Apple have all sponsered OSS in one way or another, what did their CEOs say when they made the announcement and their personnel in interviews? All this weasel "often considered" stuff can be fixed easily enough by finding a reputable source which says that and using it, "noted commentator Bob Bobson, writing in Bob's Monthly Magazine, described this event as "the birth of the open source movement."{{ref|Bob}}" NicM 17:05, 11 February 2006 (UTC).
  • As you seem to agree that there is no problem to find sources, then I object to actually remove content, as it seems understood that sources can be found. Also, some of the text is directly reflected from other articles. To change the text here also means a bigger project to updates those article if they do not have sources. We can work on it. Further, the topics of open source are pretty diverse. See the different aspects presented in the page itself. It doesn't handle just software. The exceptions to use these terms cover the diversity, and not to quantify a particular aspect of open source. The question is not if it can be sourced, but how to make it more verifiably obvious without original research. Nevertheless, this page actually needs more content, like with extra representative's text as you suggest, so I'm glad you can help with that. — Dzonatas 00:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I didn't say I wanted to remove content. All I say is that the article needs sources, it does not have them, and that sources on this subject are not hard to find. It doesn't matter what the article is about, how diverse its subject, and how many other articles there are, this one still lacks sources and is full of weasel words. Take a look at WP:CITE, WP:WEASEL and WP:V, and notice how they don't apply to the article. All you need to do is cite sources for all the assertions in the article, so that we all know the author wasn't just making it up, and attribute the points of view to at least one party, so we know the author isn't just trying to make it look like "everyone" shares his POV. NicM 12:54, 12 February 2006 (UTC).
I'm glad that you don't want to remove content, as that was misunderstood. Yes, let's add the sources. — Dzonatas 01:12, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Clean-up

A tag was placed on the page for clean-up. A specific reason, other then above about sources, is not stated. Any comments on this? — Dzonatas 01:12, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Would be nice to know what specifically needed to be cleaned. -- Joebeone (Talk) 17:43, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Yoga?

Strange it is. THat seems more like a candidate for a disambiguation page than the main article. Midgley 22:48, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I have yet to study what makes it "open source." I do agree with you on the dab. — Dzonatas 05:28, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I looked at it. There is validity to its claim as open source. It's not just an advertisment scheme. — Dzonatas 19:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Template cited?

Was the citation from "Back to the future: open source everything" in Computerworld really notable? There only seemed to be one part that was really clearly cited, and it was about a template rather than the main article. — Dzonatas 05:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

History

With the recent changes to the history section, I decided to hold back on a revert to remove its backward direction. The information added is more useful at Open source software where it can be neutrally written at greater length. Details of software related issues should not be on this page; however, software did play a big role, so it is fine to correlate the actions on this page in regard to "open source." The reason why these pages were split is because of the neutralitt of "open source" itself is affected by OSS. For example, the other non-software issues were not being addressed, or were subjected to constant edits. — Dzonatas 02:22, 22 March 2006 (UTC)