Selasa, 03 April 2007

Real Open Source

It really bothers me when people decide to redefine terms to suit their interests. I tried to stay out of this squabble but I decided to need to defend something in which I believe: Open Source. Open Source has a definition. It has licenses. The words Open Source mean something. To quote:

Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code.

If you want to call your project Open Source, you have two options.


  1. Release your project under an approved license.

  2. Create your own license and submit it for approval. If approved, congratulations. You can now use option 1.


Creating your own license and calling it "open source" is not an option. It's not a good marketing tactic either. Any "halo effect" you think you might get from bearing the "open source" label is going to be removed when people realize your project is not really Open Source.

If you want to see what got me fired up, read Matasano Blog. I don't feel the need to give any publicity to the "project" which made me post this story.

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