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[News] Policing the "Open Source" Brand

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VivaKi, dude, where is my code?

,----[ Quote ]
| Open source is not a label, like “oven fresh,” you throw on a package of 
| crackers at Trader Joe’s. It is a specific term with a specific meaning. 
| 
| It means I get to see the code.  
| 
| We’ve got people whose aim is to protect that name. Toss about a term like 
| open source and they get unhappy. You won’t like them when they are unhappy. 
| 
| So I’ll ask this one more time, Messieur, and I want a straight answer, not 
| some advertising agency gobbledegook. 
| 
| Where’s my code?
| 
| No code, no open source.
`----

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=2603

Microsoft is part of the scam that's ruining "open source". Recent example
below.


Recent:

Microsoft's non-open source attempt at open source

,----[ Quote ]
| Yet as Sandcastle demonstrates, Microsoft still has a long ways to go before
| it demonstrates that it understands and is willing to stand behind the
| obligations of open source. The Sandcastle project went live on January 8.
| Several months later, it still isn't providing source code, a key tenet of
| the CodePlex hosting requirements
|
| [...]
|
| Microsoft built CodePlex. It can do with it what it wants. But what it can't
| do is borrow the term "open source" for marketing purposes and then fail to
| live up to the Open Source Definition. I thought the company understood that.
| Sandcastle makes me wonder....
|
| So, Microsoft, your options are clear: 1) Request the site owner to provide
| source code or 2) Properly label CodePlex as a code repository, but not
| necessarily as an open-source code repository.
`----

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9961303-16.html


Microsoft’s deceptive advertising, again.

,----[ Quote ]
| Does Microsoft think we the Linux and Open Source user base are just a bunch
| of morons? In the latest advertising campaign of the closed sourced software
| giant that’s exactly what they are hoping for. Go ahead and check out for
| yourself. At http://www.microsoft.com/opensource they try to make it look
| like they are all for Open source software. They even have what they call the
| Hero Pack, fill out a form and they will send you a pack of “open source”
| tools that will help you become an “Open Source Hero”. What a giant load of
| crap how does “evaluation copies” of server 2008 and Visual Studio rank as
| open source software. They are so cheap it’s not even full versions (like I’d
| use it if it was).
`----

http://dthomasdigital.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/microsofts-deceptive-advertising-again/


Eight Things Microsoft Can And Should Do To Be More 'Open'

,----[ Quote ]
| So here are eight things Microsoft could do to add real teeth to its
| commitment to openness:
|
| 1. Reveal the patents allegedly being violated by open source products, or
| take back claims that Linux and other open source software violate at least
| 235 of Microsoft's patents.
|
| While we haven't heard more on any patent threats from Microsoft in recent
| months, they're still out there. "This is in no way removing the issue of
| patents in the context of infringement," one of Microsoft's top intellectual
| property execs told me earlier this year, when chatting about Microsoft's
| recently announced interoperability principles.
`----

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/05/eight_things_mi.html


How Microsoft Uses Open Against Open

,----[ Quote ]
| This is doubtless happening all over the place in science, which means that
| many simply forget that there are alternatives to Microsoft's products.
| Instead - quite understandably - they concentrate on the science. But what
| this implies is that however open that science may be, however much it pushes
| forward open access and open data, say, its roots are likely remain in the
| arid soil of closed source, and that Microsoft's money has the effect of
| co-opting supporters of these other kinds of openness in its own battle
| against the foundational openness of free software.
`----

http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-microsoft-uses-open-against-open.html


Related:

Microsoft's newest Halloween documents

,----[ Quote ]
|     * Microsoft is trying to look like it's all about interoperability 
|     through futile projects like Mono, Moonlight, and patent agreements with 
|     Novell and also-ran Linux vendors. But these deals are really nothing 
|     more than a way to tax open-source innovation to ensure open source is 
|     hobbled by Microsoft's fees.    
| 
| 
| And so on. Microsoft is much more open about its intentions vis-a-vis open 
| source. That doesn't mean it's any more supportive of open source. It just 
| means that it's getting easier to glean from public documents how the company 
| feels about open source.   
| 
| We don't need Halloween Documents to read the tea leaves on Microsoft and 
| open source. We just need to pay attention to what the company is doing. In 
| the open. On an increasing basis.  
`----

http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9808283-16.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TheOpenRoad


Halloween XII: What’s really behind those Microsoft licenses?

,----[ Quote ]
| Given the OSI’s stated desire to reduce the number of open source licenses, 
| not increase them, I asked the OSI board why they had approved it. “We won’t 
| approve licenses that are too similar to existing licenses”, board member 
| Russ Nelson responded in an email. However he praised the licenses for being 
| simply written, for addressing trademarks and patents, and for not naming a 
| specific jurisdiction.     
| 
| Is that enough to differentiate them? Not according to Greg Stein of the 
| Apache Foundation, who is opposed to the creation and use of new licenses 
| when existing, popular licenses already do the job. “License proliferation,” 
| he writes, “slows development and discourages usage by making it more 
| difficult to combine and remix code.”    
`----

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=423


Reverse-Halloween: The Marketing Checkbox Strategy

,----[ Quote ]
| Getting Microsoft software licenses OSI-approved and similarly getting 
| Microsoft's proprietary document formats approved at ISO are like painting an 
| old Chevrolet.  
| 
| [...]
| 
| This may be enough to satisfy the enterprise customer that he is achieving 
| something different. Clearly, the substance is no different: it's a lock-in 
| in sheep's clothing.  
`----

http://fussnotes.typepad.com/plexnex/2007/08/the-marketing-c.html


OSI email group gets catty over Microsoft's Permissive License request

,----[ Quote ]
| Things got really interesting when Chris DiBona, longtime OSI member, open 
| source advocate, and open source programs manager for Google, Inc. chimed in: 
| 
|     I would like to ask what might be perceived as a diversion and maybe even 
|     a mean spirited one. Does this submission to the OSI mean that Microsoft 
|     will:  
| 
|     a) Stop using the market confusing term Shared Source
|     b) Not place these licenses and the other, clearly non-free , non-osd
|     licenses in the same place thus muddying the market further.
|     c) Continue its path of spreading misinformation about the nature of
|     open source software, especially that licensed under the GPL?
|     d) Stop threatening with patents and oem pricing manipulation schemes
|     to deter the use of open source software?
| 
|     If not, why should the OSI approve of your efforts? That of a company who 
|     has called those who use the licenses that OSI purports to defend a 
|     communist or a cancer? Why should we see this seeking of approval as 
|     anything but yet another attack in the guise of friendliness?    
`----

http://www.linux.com/feature/118677


Merging "Open Source" and "Free Software"

,----[ Quote ]
| Of course, they are not. Other Shared Source licenses may very well be too 
| restrictive to be considered Open Source. But, Microsoft may conveniently 
| divert the attention from this little detail to the fact that some of 
| Shared Source licenses are Open Source.   
`----

http://www.libervis.com/article/merging_open_source_and_free_software


Microsoft not so 'open' after all?

,----[ Quote ]
| Head of open-source group says more than half of licenses don't pass muster
| 
| [...]
| 
| Michael Tiemann, president of the non-profit Open Source Initiative, said 
| that provisions in three out of five of Microsoft's shared-source licenses  
| that restrict source code to running only on the Windows operating system 
| would contravene a fundamental tenet of open-source licenses as laid out by 
| the OSI. By those rules, code must be free for anyone to view, use, modify as 
| they see fit.    
| 
| [...]
| 
| By his count, the OSI has rejected "two dozen" or so license applications for 
| language that restricted the use or redistribution of software and its source 
| code, even when the restrictions were written with what Tiemann 
| called "moral" intent. For instance, the OSI has rejected license 
| applications from Quakers and other pacifists who sought to prevent the use 
| of software for weapons such as landmines.     
| 
| "I am highly sympathetic to that point of view," he said. "But the OSI is not 
| in the business of legislating moral use. We allow all use, commercial or 
| non-commercial, mortal or medical."   
`----

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9028318&intsrc=news_ts_head


Is Microsoft Hijacking Open Source?

,----[ Quote ]
| What really worries me is what looks like an emerging pattern in Microsoft's 
| behaviour. The EU agreement is perhaps the first fruit of this, but I predict 
| it will not be the last. What is happening is that Microsoft is effectively 
| being allowed to define the meaning of “open source” as it wishes, not as 
| everyone else understands the term. For example, in the pledge quoted above, 
| an open source project is “not commercially distributed by its 
| participants” - and this is a distinction also made by Kroes and her FAQ.      
| 
| In this context, the recent approval of two Microsoft licences as 
| officially “open source” is only going to make things worse. Although I felt 
| this was the right decision – to have ad hoc rules just because it's 
| Microsoft would damage the open source process - I also believe it's going to 
| prove a problem. After all, it means that Microsoft can rightfully point to 
| its OSI-approved licences as proof that open source and Microsoft no longer 
| stand in opposition to each other. This alone is likely to perplex people who 
| thought they understood what open source meant.       
| 
| [...]
| 
| What we are seeing here are a series of major assaults on different but 
| related fields – open source, open file formats and open standards. All are 
| directed to one goal: the hijacking of the very concept of openness. If we 
| are to stop this inner corrosion, we must point out whenever we see wilful 
| misuse and lazy misunderstandings of the term, and we must strive to make the  
| real state of affairs quite clear. If we don't, then core concepts like “open 
| source” will be massaged, kneaded and pummelled into uselessness.     
`----

http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1003745
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