Talk:Open-source model/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Taking sides

"ideological and confrontational connotations of the term free software" is not NPOV, among other errors. Should be "Free Software" with the quotes. Cherlin 20:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Open Source vs. Open Content

There is a confusion here between what open source and open content is. Open content licensing is not the same as open source licensing, otherwise there wouldn't be Open Content licensing. This distinction was blurred in this article, and I am going to fix that.

If Open Source is the same as Open Content, then why not let's whack the Open Content entry? People like Lawrence Lessig are probably wrong about using Open Content licensing, right? If a revert is done, I do hope that this comment in the talk page is addressed. --TaranRampersad 00:12, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

"Very nascent but has huge potential." under Technology section. Very opinionated. Genjix

so-so article

The opening particularly reads at present like a direct entry into a deep and abstrse argument between people who know everything about the subject already. This doesn't serve the purpose of an encyclopaedia.

I suggest:-

• there is some difficulty handling Open source (extensions) vs open source software as in FLOSS, esr, Netscape, Mountain View etc. Split it. "In software, Open Source refers to..."
• the genesis of the idea usefully goes very early in the article - in the introduction I'd say.
• any effort to talk about the later application of the idea, back-fitting it to previous initiativs and behaviour (Potlatch etc if you like) should go way down the page, very much in "other uses of the idea; similar things and antecedent social phenomena", and if they are important they probably have their own articles.

Midgley 10:58, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, maybe not as bad as that, and the OSS article does that already. The beginning of this one needs work. Midgley 11:14, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment:Article really needs to be expanded to include open source organizations, open source planning, implementation, etc. That or create a category known as "Open Source" and expound upon it from there. There are many things involved in the phrase "open source" that are not even remotely touched upon here. Given the time I may expound upon that myself. Seansquared 11:55, 20 July 2006

Comment: I think the Mandriva Linux screenshot should be removed immediately. For two reasons: (1) It creates confusion between open source and open source software and (2) a screenshot does not sufficiently explain what open source is. It should be moved to the OSS page instead.

i do beleve that the true concept now known as open source was orginally created by ben franklin... with his experiments with lightning.... and the lightning rod...

Merge 'Open implementation' to this page?

Someone slapped a mergefrom template at the top of this page with no supporting discussion. I've removed it because it detracts from the article (for the majority of visitors who just came here to read about 'Open source'). And what's more the merge could take place and the contents would be swallowed by this article without it impacting it much, so this page is the wrong place for the label. Much better is to have an ugly label at the top of the other page (Open implementation). So I've moved it there. Of course you can have it on both, but unless a merge is actaully under active discussion, I think it's a shame to leave it lingering on this more prominent article.

Anyway this is the place for discussion. So discuss! Should there be a seperate Open implementation article? Don't care much either way myself -- Nojer2 09:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Wickethewok User:Wickethewok

Ah actually there was this following comment on the other page. A vote for "don't merge". I'll move it here (since the merge 'discuss' links point to here). -- Nojer2 09:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Dont merge - Open implementation is quite different from open source, not an appropriate merge imo. Wickethewok 16:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

OK Wickethewok dropped the merge template from the other page, so I guess that's resolved -- Nojer2 10:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge 'Open source culture' to this page?

...and now there is an ugly mergefrom template for an Open source culture merge. At least there is a discussion this time. Go to Talk:Open source culture to talk about resolving this (i.e. decide if we should merge then remove the label, or not merge... and remove the label).

But my feeling is... while that discussion is in progress the label should be removed from this (more important) Open source page anyway, because it detracts. But anyway, the very ugly NPOV label is currently overshadowing it, so maybe it doesn't matter! -- Nojer2 10:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

WP policy is to discuss mergers on the "to" page, not the "from" page, since the Talk page of the "from" article will become almost invisible after the merge. I support the merge. Gronky 15:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

So, since there has been no movement on this for several months, I'm going to boldly close it as having no consensus either way. If you disagree, feel free to revert me. --Haemo 03:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Jenny Everywhere

As far as I know, she is unique in being an open source fictional character. Should she be listed, and if so, where? 67.10.175.242 02:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

But she's not notable. It's nice trivia, but it's trivial :-) Gronky 15:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Reasons for not promoting

Hi all,

I have not promoted this because I feel that the article still needs some work. Specifically:

• The lead could better highlight that the article will focus on open source the concept/term/methodology not open source software.
• The article needs to better explain the open source methodology preferably in a separate section (e.g. Methodology).
• The article needs to make sure it doesn't become a list of everything open source and could use a tighter focus. For example, the open source beer discussion is probably too long.
• The article's lists could use consistent formatting.

Cedars 09:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

What about the Open Gaming License

There are a lot of pen and paper RPG games and additions to the games recently licensed under GPL, GFDL, CC and most commonly the Open Gaming License. Check out this website: http://www.opengamingfoundation.org

BT: You mean the article on Open gaming? // Brick Thrower 18:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Advertising on Wikipedia

Fellow Wikipedians,

I just read the Open Source entry and was shocked to see what looked like an advertisement for Eric Raymond's book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar on the right hand side. Of course it only links to the gif image of the book cover and that book is a foundational document in the history of open source--still, it felt like a commercial. Am I being too sensitive? It just didn't feel in the tradition of wikipedia to so prominently promote an author that way. Let me know what you think. Domo2700 19:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

dominick

---

Why was Mandriva Linux being the "screenshot" for Open Source? It is not one of the most notable open source projects, and I think it includes non-OSS. Removed for now. Foolswisdom 19:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

There's nothing negative to say about open source? -- Mikeblas 02:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

No, there's just nothing that anyone's written on the wiki page. Why do you ask? DMacks 03:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm asking because Wikipedia needs to be NPOV, and this article certainly isn't, since no critiques of open source are mentioned. I've marked the article NPOV for this reason. -- Mikeblas 14:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

oh let's troll open source people lol ^___^ -- and two POV does not somehow magically make NPOV, unless you're the mainstream media covering the U.S. elections. The article, as it stands, is unbiased towards either side. Go away, troll. Tag removed. --70.108.92.221 18:34, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I've replaed the tag as the article remains POV. There's no coverage of the problems in the open source community, nor any discussion of the negatives in the practice. Your ad hominem attack doesn't convince me that the article is balanced. Here's a couple of references to help us get started: [1] [2] -- Mikeblas 22:26, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

oh cool someone reads big boy messageboards, will you use the word "strawman" please?? i find it a very hot commodity in the buzzword industry. ‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.›  Read what the guy below me is saying. --70.108.92.221 01:42, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

If know of any disadvantages or negative aspects then please add it, otherwise i think its unfair to label it as POV when there isn't much of "another" point of view.82.42.176.67 18:45, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Lack of negativity does not make an article POV. I'm removing the NPOV tag. Please feel free to add criticisms to think article though. —Pengo ^{talk · contribs} 12:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've placed a "blanced" tag. What do you mean by "add criticisms to think article through"? -- Mikeblas 00:45, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how it can be considered unbalanced. Should biographies also be required to have criticisms of the people they're about? And err.. I meant either "please feel free to add criticisms to the article though" or "please add criticisms you think should be added" or, umm.. a mix of the two. —Pengo ^{talk · contribs} 02:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

It can be considered unbalanced because it goes on for section after section touting the advantages of Open Source, but has only a couple sentences about critiques of open source. Yep; if a biographical article is to be balanced, I don't see why it shouldn't criticize the person (or, at least, their works). -- Mikeblas 15:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Besides, the article already has criticism of open source: —Pengo ^{talk · contribs}

"Others argue that society loses through open sourced goods. Because there is a loss in monetary incentive to the creation of new goods, some argue that new products will not be created. This argument seems to apply particularly to the business model where extensive research and development is done, e.g. pharmaceuticals. However, others argue that visual art and other works of authorship should be free. These proponents of extensive open source ideals argue that there should be no monetary incentive for artists."

I added the NPOV tag back again. Clearly, since there is this much discussion, the article does not meet WP:NPOV guidelines. (See WP:NPOV_dispute for what qualifies: "Note, however, that there is a strong inductive argument that, if a page is in an NPOV dispute, it very probably is not neutral.") There is a pejorative tone taken vis a vis free software, and in fact the whole controversy of the free vs. open source software movements is only touched on. In addition, there's nothing of all the studies Microsoft has conducted, whether or not those studies themselves be neutral. Finally, there is no argument about the legal minefield that is open source licensing and the restrictions it has; take a look at debian-legal if you want examples. I'm not trolling, I write open source software myself, but I agree with the other posters. --Chris Pickett 03:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

how far are we on the issue? IMHO this is an important article, and I would love to see the NPOV/balance tag removed. What exectly are the points that need to be adressed before this would become NPOV again? We should be able to find out what needs work, and consequently edit it so that it is acceptable to all. To start out with, where are those Microsoft papers? i'll have a looksee if I can fit them in myself. Martijn Hoekstra 01:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

First, it would be absurd to require a criticism of everything, including biographies. But when there are criticisms that are held by an appreciable contingent (and don't ask me to define what is "appreciable" or "significant" or whatever other term you think applies), then that criticism should be included. Here, I can think of two criticisms or concerns that are pretty widely held. 1) The concern that some "Open Source" could include some code that violates a patent and 2) that the term "open source" software is a misnomer, and should not be confused with "free software" (which in turn should not be confused with "for free" software), as per Richard Stallman's argument here [3]. Josh.anders 00:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the patent concern and the open/free concern have both been included in the Criticism section, so I'm removing the NPOV tag. CSWarren 12:46, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that anyone who has something negative to add concerning Open Source or an argument against it should roll up their sleeves and ADD it to the article. You're more than welcome to. If there is a rash of deletions and whatnot of said criticisms, then perhaps this could be considered NPOV. As it is, you're asking people to write about a side of the matter they know little about. Just because there is information missing from an article doesn't mean there's been a deliberate attempt to censor that information. NPOV tags should be reserved for articles that show DELIBERATE attempts to silence either side of an issue. Stop complaining and write a section of criticisms yourself if you're so adamant about it. Wellesradio 21:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)Wellesradio

Open source began in the 1950s

The development of early operating systems and utilites was from code freely shared between vendors and their customers. Note the IBM 701 user group, SHARE. That beginning, and why it went away, should be included in this article. 69.106.232.37 16:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The article does have a passage, with the silly title 'Innovation communities', which starts off with saying that some of the principles go back to the 19th century. I'm sure the practices with respect to IBM software in the mid 20th century might belong in there, as an illustration. Note that this article is about 'Open Source', the term apparently invented by the OSI in 1998, so unless the term 'Open Source' was being bandied about before then, then your example should really only be an example of one of the historical precursors to the Open Source movement. --Aim Here 02:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, read this: http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html It cites use of the term "Open Source" in 1996. LionKimbro

RE: Open source began in the 1950's

I agree that this article misses the point of a process that has been going on for a very long time. The direct ancestors of GNU certainly started with things like the BSD release from Berkeley. All DARPA and government funded projects required that non-classified software be freely available to the public. All that was required was the cost of the tape for duplication.

The Ingres project at Berkeley was funded by the Census Department to process the 1970 census data. Mike Stonebraker brought in the first Unix system outside of Bell Labs into Berkeley and made copies of Ingres available to anyone, but sent them primarily to other universities. Unix then became the primary operating system at Berkeley and releases were sent out under the same rules, which ultimately became the BSD distribution and included that original Ingres system. Bill Joy was the person primarily responsible for assembling this release. Once the internet really started going beyond uucp and dial-up connections, distributions became completely electronic and totally free.

Linux, GNU and the whole open source movement owe far more to these early steps toward free and open software distribution than what is described here. Even the BSD licensing concepts were influential in the development of open source licenses.

--Johnnewton 09:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

GNU owes Unix nothing. Unix had quite good designed interfaces so it was convenient to start GNU by replacing bit for bit of Unix. The software before GNU was partly free software but it was not published under a free software license. Also it could not have been open source, because this term didn't exist then. Copyleft was invented by Richard Stallman. The GNU General Public License is not an open source license. It belongs to the GNU Project which belongs to the free software movement. -- mms 12:00, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I just don't know all the facts, but I regard free software not as the exception of "regular" software which emerged from time to time in different flavors but as the usual way to deal with software. The proprietary software is the exception. Ever since software was free. At least if a nice person asked you for it or offered some money, you gave the software – which means the source – and the rights to do what the fuck you want to with it (for the modern copyright there is a correspondent license: WTFPL). -- mms 12:00, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

It should somehow be possible to organize an open source translation project – i.e. "Open Translation" for poems, songs etc.
When reading poetical translations made mainly by more or less know poets, I think one often has better ideas for certain verses or images that the poet tried to recreate in the target language – whereas for some verses he may have found English verses that are hard to improve.
Thus if many people work on trying to provide "the perfect" translation of say Der Erlkönig by not removing other ideas/text but just adding their own it should be much more likely to exhaust what the language has to offer.
I think it’s not easy to find a good organizational pattern for such a project but that's not different with Open music.
Sincerely, Christian Storm 14:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Bad Title?

The link to "Open Source Learning Project" (under Society and Culture - Education) does not work. It links to a WikiBooks page, which says "the requested page title was invalid, empty, or incorrectly linked."

Wikipedia open source

Isn't Wikipedia the most splendid example of aplying the open source concept. How can we even think of claiming that an article about open source is even a decent article, much less a high quality article when we don't even mention this. Can I even believe that somebody who writes an article on Wikipedia about open source knows what he is talking about when he-she is not aware that every chararcter written is an open source action.

This is not the Encyclopedia Britannica, this is Wikipedia. And this is open source and we should let everybody be aware that we know what we are doing.

Afil 16:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipeida has more than enough self-congratulation as it is. We as editors do not need to tout how great wikipedia is in every article where we can squeeze in a line to that effect. 155.42.99.213 16:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Also per Wikipedia:Avoid self-references Martijn Hoekstra 18:41, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that if WP indeed is an example of open source, this should be mentioned. This is not because we would show everyone that we know what we are doing, but because it is a fact about an important thing in the world (namely, WP) that is very relevant to what we are talking about. -Pgan002 02:57, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

"fixations"?

I'm new here -- be nice!

Ironically, I came to this page to learn more about open source. Learn by doing, I guess. Somebody help me out with this quote from the page:

'"Open source" as applied to culture defines a culture in which fixations are made generally available. Participants in such a culture are able to modify those products and redistribute them back into the community.'

"fixations"??? I don't get it. The link doesn't clarify things either. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Junglebike (talk • contribs) 23:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

It is part of the new age art culture. Don't quote me on that, but that is where you want look to research it for where the word is used more. For example, where you have several teams of people paint a single picture, it becomes a fixation. 23:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.62.176.177 (talk)

Too many useless external links

The title says what i wanted to say ;)

eg: 50 Open Source success stories in Business, Education, and Government Comedies of Fair U$e blog Microsoft Open Specification Promise

Open Source covers a vast array of applications. Having a lot of good external links is important. Which external links, in particular, do you find useless? Please list at least some of them, instead of making the vague statement "Too many useless external links".

I agree that there are too many but perhaps this is a problem because they aren't organized/categorized so it's difficult to find the ones of interest. I for example want to add a section for open source developers. Suggestions? Philipolson 00:38, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

Currently looks like it was a bunch of articles merged together (I don't know if it was but it looks like it), has poor flow and structure. Horrible lists, generally poorly cited, overcomplex language, some bits that read like OR. Badly needs cleanup. NicM 19:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

Community Open Source vs Commercial Open Source

I'd argue that community open source and commercial open source are two quite different variants of open source. Some might even dispute that commercial open source has something to do with (the original spirit of) open source at all. I suggest whoever is going to do the cleanup adds this distinction to the article. Dirk Riehle 21:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Open Source vs open source

Could someone explain the difference and appropriate uses of each? Philipolson 16:03, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

removed snow crash

Although the Snow Crash entry is interesting, I don't see why it would be added to this article, so I undid the edit. --Unixguy 15:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Links

How does the "Hill of Crosses" Have anythingto do with open source? Motor.on 20:34, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

This article is full of missing images, unordered content, messy presentation, and more. We need to get this cleaned up!

Open Source Enterprise

Run an enterprise in an open source approach

I suggest that the term open source and in particular the conceptional approach behind should be decoupled from software or product development? The term might be grown up in that area but the concept as such seems to be universal and more and more valuable/important in an increasing global and globally integrated enterprise.

Would “open source enterprise” the right title for an enterprise that is run and developed in accordance to an open source approach?

I am not talking about an enterprise who utilizes open source software or a company who develops products in accordance to an open source approach. I suggest a legal, profitable self sustain enterprise that is truly open in almost all aspects. That means that everybody can join in to for instance develop business processes further and get them implemented, retrieve business reports on all business transactions, design and get better reports implemented, look into the account, form business and expansion strategies, set enterprise values and even be part of product development, sales and /or service delivery operations. All that is run as business meaning every body gets a salary or another value back for his contributions.

Who has an opinion on that? User:Volker Mielke 22:53, 26 June 2007 (GMT)

Pre-1998 usage of the term "Open Source"

Trudging through a Slashdot flame-fest over whether "Open Source" means "OSI-compliant license" or "Source code available, possibly under a proprietary license", I found a reference to a 1996 Usenet article that uses the term "Open Source". Samboy 15:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

SHARE Inc & article flow

There is the few sentences about SHARE Inc. that does not show any influence on Open Source, even though it may freely distributed software. I found the paragraph of the history to read:

"In the 1950s, IBM distributed operating systems in source format, and the SHARE user group was formed to facilitate the exchange of source code. In 1960's, researchers with access to the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) used a process called Request for Comments, which is similar to open standards, to develop telecommunication network protocols. Characterized by contemporary open source work, this collaborative process led to the birth of the Internet in 1969"

It's like someone just threw a sentence in there about SHARE. It doesn't explain anything else why it is even in the History section.

This entire article use to be pretty cut-and-dry about Open Source, and now it is like a list of every possible freely distributed piece of software, again. A lot this article can be moved over to the Open source software page. -- 18:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The SHARE reference has been there for a while, and the ARPA reference even longer. Earlier this summer, 208.228.181.183 moved some parts of the History section around, presumably trying to organize it in timeline order as most histories are. SHARE's involvement in Open Source before it had a name is well documented — there's even an article in Spanish Wikipedia about the SHARE Operating System for the IBM 704 (I guess I'm going to have to pull that one over and build it up!), and of course the SHARE article here mentions the SHARE Program Library.

Open Source has a long history, this article should include it. RossPatterson 00:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Open Source has had a very long history, its philosophy has been around quite a bit longer than before software existed. We can't include much of it due to lack of peer-reviewed sources. I think the history section was ordered by significance rather than timeline actually, I'll have to look, it wasn't originally called 'history' as that section was moved over to the Open Source Software when the page split. -- 19:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.62.176.177 (talk)

The Criticism Section

The "criticism" section seems confused - it is introducing concepts about money-making - into a subject that has nothing to do with making money. The whole point about Open Source software is that a group of people decide to release their code to the world free from copyright restrictions, lawyers, and moneylenders. That is one of the main things that attracted me, as an end user and educationalist, to Linux builds, and then Mambo and Joomla! as an alternative to paying large amounts of money to Bill Gates for stuff that the Open Source Community (note - community) has been able to do better or just as well. Open Source creators are probably more motivated by the excitement of doing something useful for the rest of us for free and in trying to achieve the very best results. It's called "voluntary work"! How can anyone be criticised for doing good works? To criticise an enterprise because it is not motivated by greed or the profit motive is just bizarre. The only people really scared of Open Source software are the big companies afraid of losing their billions. A "criticism" in this context is really about how good the final product is, how well it compares with well known commercial products. The fact that it is not a capitalist enterprise is irrelevant or could be mentioned in a "social significance" subsection. or in a social behavioural sub-section questioning why it is that companies insist on spending fortunes upgrading Windows software when they could either not upgrade or switch to the new nice and easy Linuxes or just pay someone to find ways of making Windows do something useful! Seriously, this is an encyclopedia so the entry should be mostly about fact - what it is, what it does, how it works etc etc. with social impacts in a lesser section. 79.66.184.222 15:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

First, if you think Open Source is "free from copyright restrictions, [and] lawyers", you haven't been paying attention. In fact, it's entirely based on copyright restrictions and lawyers, ironically much moreso than on software. Only the Public domain is free of them, and PD is neither Open Source nor Free Software by anybody's definitions.

Second, nobody is criticising voluntary work. But if you re-read the section you're complaining about, you'll see that it says "The critics argue that without this compensation, many socially desirable and useful works would never be created in the first place." That criticism is perfectly valid, even if it isn't universally or undeniably true. Taking another type of "socially desirable and useful works" as an example, most enduring examples of well-regarded art have been paid for by some party or other, allowing the artist the time and energy to focus on their art. Actually, the same is true of much well-loved Open Source too. Brian Behlendorf, Alan Cox, Guido van Rossum, and Linus Torvalds all get paid by sponsors to do their good works.

Lastly, I'm not a big corporation, but I've spent 30 years of my life as a software craftsman, and I'm afraid of anyone who thinks I shouldn't be able to earn a living doing code. It doesn't mean I don't do pro bono work, in fact I and my brothers-in-code do lots of it. But we like to feed, house, and clothe our families too. RossPatterson 03:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Not objective enough. It is misleading to say that Open Source is even more based on lawyers etc. in the sense that we end users will understand, in its commonly understood sense. If I copy my version of Joomla! for a friend and he copies it for another friend that is allowable. I'm not going to get fined by the Open Source developers who in fact want as many people as possible to use their product. The game for them is to produce a better and more popular product. I don't pay a fee. There is no financial transaction. The contract is that I will not claim to be the producer, that I will acknowledge and hopefully promote the software and its creators. A totally different contract to a commercial one. Each OS product of course does have a legal status as explained on the OSI [4] site but on a perfectly reasonable common sense basis of not pretending that a product is yours when it is not. You might say why bother producing such legal documentation but I would guess it was because of unscrupulous individuals trying to pass off other people's work as their own - hence the need to create a legal framework to protect the idea of Open Source which seems contradictory but in an unscrupulous world understandable. However, for the rest of us, we just understand that we can use the software, add to it and develop it and not have think about policemen.

Open Source also gives a lot of very talented but unknown people the opportunity to show off their talents. It also aloows the saem people to try something different and in the end the whole Open Source initiative is a fantastic playground for creators and users alike. Since I discovered "Freeware" (different I know) and Open Source I have been able to set up an excellent Content Management system of my own using Joomla. I would never have been able to do that without the community that created it. Thousands of people are involved and hundreds are producing superb addons and extensions all the time. That is really the essence and spirit of Open Source.

The downside are lack of support sometimes, no actual individual to contact when you need help, a high degree of computer knowledge, no guarantees etc etc. And so, it is also perfectly reasonable I think for the OS community to offer paid services for support and training - the money-making future and just financial reward I think. Incidentally, no artist paints just to make money although obviously we all need to make it! That's my contribution to this debate. I'm retiring now!

Keveen2 12:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Opensource.org

This article only has (that I could readily see) an obscure link to Opensource.org (history footnote #3 osihistory). Doesn't it deserve a more prominent link? Is there a better concise URL aout open source software (that could be put on a bumper sticker for example)? Curiously the wiki [Open_Source_Initiative] article does not have a prominent link to Opensource.org - the first 'external link tho only labeled "Official Website" Shouldn't it say Opensource.org as well?

- I think the opening line of the Open_Source_Initiative page should be:

The Open Source Initiative ( [| www.opensource.org ] ) is an organization dedicated to promoting open-source software.

And the line in the history section of this page should read:

This milestone may be commonly seen as the birth of the Open Source Initiative ( [| www.opensource.org ] ).

I'm not a very active OS participant. I suppose turf considerations ("free" vs" "open") account for not have ONE prominent URL. Despite it's shortcomings we should be promoting the term "Open Source" rather than inventing new terms. I think "free" as in "freedom" is an idea too difficult to "sell". BTW, all the related articles on this on wikipedia would make it useful to have more links to: | Various Open source / free software related Wikipedia articles Fholson 12:59, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Open source: follow

Just a thing: as open source is not only regarding informatics and software or other in relation to it, please take in consideration there are other kind of open source projects that need attention. The only talking about the Joe's cell is an open source way and as many know, the Joe's cell is an open source tool, 'cause everyone can made one and use it, but laws don't permit it, so ... the question still. What do they want really? Health or money? But they are out from open source!

So I think it should also necessary to have an index where to find the exact section. If I find something useful and I give it to the collectivity, this is open source, 'cause I don't ask any money or other in return (this means totally free). This must be free for all and no Government can do something, no law. When the source of the base project is open to everyone, it means that everyone can use it. No rights are required. Only, give those modifications you could apply, those updatings, to the entire collectivity to try and find other. This is what a serious collectivity should do.

So a page dedicated to open source, I think should include that index with alla values regarding to it.

But it's up to you. This is only a proposal.

In respect to the asked neutral point of view —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.223.121.133 (talk) (09:02, 11 October 2007

I wasn't familiar with "Joe cells" so for the benefit of other readers who would not immediately understand the reference, this is apparently a debated technology. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Joe_Cell -- and for an alternate point of view, the top Google hit for this term is http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/05/the_joe_cell_a.php right now.-- era (Talk | History) 21:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Afd: Free and open source software

FYI: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Free_and_open_source_software --Gronky 13:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Result of AfD was Keep

discuss a merger at Talk:Free_and_open_source_software#Merge_FS_.2B_OSS_here Lentower 01:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

OS and OSS merge still being considered?

FWIW, I still think the idea of merging the open source and open-source software articles is a really good idea. --Gronky 16:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

This merge is a good idea. Lentower 03:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• I vote no on the merge. You'll have to consider the history of why the articles were taken apart. Simply, this "open source" article has become polluted with "open-source software" details, and that is not a reason to re-merge them. As the old argument states, a rectangle is not a square as well as, in an analogy, open-source software is not open source. The more recent revolution of open-source in open-source software is not does not denote the invention of open source itself. — Dzonatas 12:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like you are saying that "open source" existed before the 1998 launch of "open-source software". This is misappropriation of history. --Gronky 14:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Not at all, see this link where the term is recognized to exist before 1998: here -- — Dzonatas 19:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Secret sauce

I'm not a native English speaker and only recently learned of the term "secret sauce". To what extent was the term "open source" invented as a pun on "secret sauce"? Currently, a Google search for the two terms returns no less than 84,000 web pages. But what early evidence of this connection exists? --LA2 (talk) 04:23, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Thinning of "See also" links

I removed a good number of links to specific projects, sites, and topics which I did not feel suitable for the broad and general nature of this article. Some of them should probably be included on the open source software page or similar. Here's the diff.-- era (Talk | History) 21:41, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

"A Free Open-Source Software Resource" Relevance == Informative

"A Free Open-Source Software Resource", http://www.zentu.net is a site I pay money for, out of my own pocket, to inform people about the benefits of Free Open-Source Software. I have never been paid a penny for any of its content, nor accepted any donations. It is not link-spam; it's useful, relevant, comprehensive and informative. Please accept it in lieu of my financial ability to donate actual cash. Thank you.

Indiejade (talk) 23:12, 15 December 2007 (UTC) Shawnee :)

Your website does not belong as an external link in Wikipedia articles. It adds nothing encyclopedic to them, it has very little content, and nothing significantly original. Please do not add it to any more articles. RossPatterson (talk) 18:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The link is useful in that it 'organizes' the vague cloud of 'free open-source software' into categories that are informative and understandable to the average non-technical user. Free open-source software itself is nothing to people unless they understand what it does or can do for them. Free word-processors? A free spreadsheet program? Free graphic-design software? All of these are common examples of Free Open-Source Software that a lot of people would and could benefit from using, but that many don't understand how to get, though they may have heard about F/OSS. The link bridges the gap. The details are explained on the site. The website does collectively what each individual small open-source project cannot do on its own, and that is bring awareness to the concept of Free Open-Source Software as it relates to software for which people would normally pay money. I would be very interested in seeing how many of these removals of my link and revised edits are being done by people on Microsoft Operating Systems. . .

The average non-technical user is not interested in the politics, which is why this argument is extremely futile and hurting the cause. RossPatterson, your opinion that the site is "not a particularly good one at that" is irrelevant, not to mention rude, and unless you can point the way to a website that does what mine does better, I kindly ask that you please do not remove my contribution.

Extremely long alphabetical lists are okay for some things, but sometimes people like and can understand things better when they're organized more simply, explained according to function ala - KISS_Principle. Again, a non-technical user wouldn't necessarily be able to easily make sense of or navigate that extremely long alphabetical list. Nor does the List of open source software packages on wikipedia make efficient use of the correlation of FOSS with operating systems like Linux or Unix. http://www.zentu.net/ does both. The point is for people who know little to nothing about FOSS to be gradually introduced to the idea, without becoming overwhelmed. Again, I assert that my link does NOT harm the "encyclopedic" integrity of any wikipedia page related to this topic. Again, I would be very interested to know exactly what operating system the people who are removing my link are running on their machines. Please DO NOT remove my contribution, which is the link. Indiejade (talk) 16:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but the onus is on you to demonstrate the significance and notability of this website if you want the link to stay. Go read the Wikipedia policy for the details of why and how. RossPatterson (talk) 02:31, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The significance and notability of the site has already been demonstrated as explained above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Indiejade (talk • contribs) 22:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The site is whilst not commercial is very definitely promotional in nature and subsequently goes against policy as per WP:COI (self promotion). I agree with RossPatterson in this regard. User A1 (talk) 04:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Ross and User A1. This link should be deleted. It violates WP policies. Indiejade's arguments are good ones for it being included on non-WP sites. Lentower (talk) 12:15, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Includes free software, intersects with open content, used by consortia --section removed

I'm removing this to talk for the time being. In its current form it's simply a statement of personal opinion by whoever wrote it, and is completely unsourced:

Perens and Raymond themselves are far clearer and more exact and honest about what constitutes open source licensing, and what does not. Under their definitions, free software is clearly a type of open source, and most consortium efforts like Java and W3 make use of open source licenses. The open content movement intersects with the open source movement but supports licenses such as CC-by-nc-sa that clearly and explicitly and deliberately violate Perens' and Raymond's principles.

Persons unfamiliar with the detailed legal distinctions between the various movements above are usually best advised to use more specific terms describing the actual characteristics of the movement. Better terms, such as mass peer review or social software or open politics or consensus decision making, exist to describe specific types of use or theories. The term open source culture can be used to describe the most general aspects of the model, but “open source” is (according to the principles) a way to describe source code that the public can read, and nothing else. Mass peer review is accordingly implied, but none of the social, political, legal or other attributes are implied—for instance transparency of business deals is not included.

--Tony Sidaway 20:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

does OS have to be software?

the beggining says "Open source is a set of principles and practices on how to write software." However, there are several projects that have hardly anything ( or even COMPLETELY anything ) in common with programming or software in general, such as OpenCola, Vores Øl , [5] .... those are only few examples that i found during last 30 minutes and i'm pretty sure there are much more such projects. I think it would be a good idea to mention this in the article, because it fits the definition of open source ( despite the fact, that it is not software ). 79.185.99.223 (talk) 16:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

--Sean.mcclowry (talk) 07:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC) I agree that open source does not need to apply stictly to code although it is what most people think when they think of open source. Another example would be www.openmethodology.org. Maybe a good approach would be to state that most people think code when they think open source but there are arguably some other implementations that follow the same principles.

Be careful about revisionism. There's free software, and there are things which free software got ideas from, and there are things that have been inspired by free software. I think it's wrong to look at pre-1983 events and call them free software inspired.

For example, the pre-1983 code sharing community in MIT was something that inspired the free software. Openmethodology is something new that's been inspired by free software. (And all that is equally true if you replace "free" with the marketing term "open source") --Gronky (talk) 08:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Open Source vs. Creative Commons

Open source as a movement is agnostic about sharing as it does not compel any sharing or put conditions on sharing of improvements, nor prevent actions that prevent future sharing.

I think that this statement isn't true. Altough it matters whether we are speaking about client or server side software. In client side open source software you have to share improvements. --Zslevi (talk) 19:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The distinction here is "open source" as opposed to "free software". Open source is a superset of free software. It includes such things as BSD-licensed code, which is not copyleft. Chris Cunningham (talk) 19:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but this just isn't true. You're correct in stating that the BSD license is not a copyleft license but BSD licensed software is still qualified as free software. Note the following statement from the license list over at the GNU website "This is the original BSD license, modified by removal of the advertising clause. It is a simple, permissive non-copyleft free software license, compatible with the GNU GPL.".

Also the terms Open Source and Free Software are more closely related to each other than you make them out to be. Here's a comment by the originator of the term, Bruce Perens, on Slashdot:

When I wrote the Open Source definition, Richard Stallman approved of it (in a private email) as "A good definition of Free Software". He has not written his own definition at that time. Free Software and Open Source are both names for the same thing - software licensed a particular way, and the only way they differ is that they talk about it in a different way - Open Source is a campaign directed toward business people, Free Software is not. Even RMS agrees with me on this now (we were on stage in Italy two weeks ago talking about this) although he will of course always want to be identified as a Free Software person because he feels it's most important to talk about Freedom. Once upon a time Eric Raymond did try to differentiate Free Software from Open Source, and he tried to deprecate RMS in general. That was a mistake and does not matter any longer. -- Bruce Perens[6]

--Bruce (talk) 17:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, now that I've put some thought into it I think me previous statement of "the BSD license is not a copyleft license but BSD licensed software is still qualified as free software was false. As you (Chris Cunningham) correctly stated, the BSD license is a non-copyleft license and therefor does not require all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well.

If a program is free but not copylefted, then some copies or modified versions may not be free at all. A software company can compile the program, with or without modifications, and distribute the executable file as a proprietary software product. -- [7]

I still think the point I was trying to make is a valid, also see BSD License Problem. --Bruce (talk) 18:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Zslevi, Open Sources and Free Sotware licenses apply to distribution.

King Kamal —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.81.81.184 (talk) 03:22, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

History of the term

The reference to the usenet posting on "Looking for published DES code" is a poor example of previous use because it appears to confuse the sense in which the term is used there. This posting uses 'open source' in its original sense of publicly available intelligence-relevant information as referred to in the article Open Source Intelligence. Might it not be better to mention this original sense of 'open source' in the article and use a reference that does not mention software at all (usenet is bristling with them). Eric Raymond acknowledges this dual sense/appropriation here: "Yes, we're aware of the specialized meaning "open source" has in the intelligence community. This is a feature, not a bug." Jutl (talk) 08:38, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears this page has gone through a major change without any discussion. We should restore the more 'disambiguation' version of the article rather than this heavy software subject. See the changes: here — Dzonatas 20:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

---

Even more importantly to the term is how can benefit society, "Free and Open Source Software is important because it can help NPO’s and CBO’s stop spending valuable resources, which could and should be directed elsewhere, on software. Proprietary software, software produced and marketed with restrictions on its use, is never really owned by the organizations that use it. For example, an NPO generally cannot legally give its workers copies of proprietary software to use at home. Schools cannot send their students home with the software they use at school, and students aren’t allowed to copy proprietary software to share with friends. Free and Open Source software renders these kind of concerns a complete non-issue. It’s really a very simple and elegant solution to an artificially created problem."[open thinking.com] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Goolsbymedia (talk • contribs) 21:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation & NPOV

The authors split the article after April 2005 into Open source and Open-source software to help disambiguate the software related subjects from the rest of the open source related topics. It was obvious that the software related topics dominated the expression open source, but not enough to completely eradicate any information about open source that is not software based. It was commonly fond that someone wanted to edit the open source article (before the open-source software page was split out) and change words or information to bias it towards software related subjects. That made the article very hard to read. This page, Open Source, became more of a general reference (disambiguation) to several articles, even open-source software. I don't see any comments to justify any reason to erase very informative history and references about open source and especially the many not about software. I vote to return the page back to the more disambiguated version. — Dzonatas 20:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

OSD and dubious changes

I notice in the section for the OSD there are links where it says Perens wrote the OSD then later says that Stallman wrote the OSD. The sections is obviously dubious. Here is the version found: here — Dzonatas 21:43, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Since RMS is pretty much for "free software", and not so much for "open source", and he wrote the free software definition for sure, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't touch something called open source with a 10 foot pole, I guess that's correct. Possibly we can get a source for who wrote the OSD, though? (tries to dig in memory... good grief I used to know this by heart ^^;;) --Kim Bruning (talk) 01:21, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, RMS is more about free software rather if it involves open-source contributions or not. See here. — Dzonatas 17:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

And, here. — Dzonatas 20:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

What is that supposed to mean ? Free Software means that you provide the source code. The Free stands for Freedom, not free as in beer. DCEvoCE (talk) 15:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Society and culture section

This unreadable, unsourced muddle that has been inserted shouldn't dominate the article. I'm all for mentioning antecedents and parallel ideas to open source but in the end the article is supposed be about open SOURCE, not blogs and collages. Either that or it should be named something more general. Elsendero (talk) 23:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

It needs work, as this page used to be more disambiguated before the last few months where it went heavy on the software side. All the software and software source code issues have a full page at open-source software. What happens is that the software issues dominate and everything else "open source" or related gets taken out because it isn't software. It's easier to read and work with the articles with them separated, and to have open source topics kept in different articles. We can use this article tlo disambiguate, so it really just needs summarizations of other articles. — Dzonatas 01:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

fitness section

I don't think that this fitness section is apporpeate to mention in this article, as it does not relate to the os movement. Therefor I find that this section should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.167.139.54 (talk) 13:51, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Distinguish tag needed?

I saw this blog post, and it made me wonder: Should we put a {{distinguish}} tag on this page distinguishing "Open source" from Open Source Intelligence? I know this article here mentions OSINT partway down the page (here), but it's pretty minimal. Thoughts? I would just be bold and put the tag there but I don't know if this has already been discussed to death somewhere else. BonnySwan (talk) 15:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Go for it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Intro Section

I'm busy working on the Obama campaign right now so I don't have much time to spend editing Wikipedia, but I really think the intro to this page sucks. It is poorly written and confusing. --Geo19 4 (talk) 01:01, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I too am busy working, but on the McCain campaign. Far busier than Geo19_4, but I couldn't agree with Geo more about the intro. Anyone impressed yet? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.205.144 (talk) 02:39, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Exponential Growth of Open Source

One indicator of the significance of open source (software) is its growth pattern. We make the case for exponential growth here: Deshpande, Amit (2008). "The Total Growth of Open Source". Proceedings of the Fourth Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS 2008). Springer Verlag. pp. 197–209. {{cite conference}}: External link in |authorlink2= (help); Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) (The previous information is written up in Wikipedia citation format for copy and paste). I think this should go into the introduction but I hesitate to put it there myself; would be good if someone else agrees and does the job. If nobody comes by I might do it myself :-) Dirk Riehle (talk) 09:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The cited URL is now a 404. -- Beland (talk) 16:29, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Are now adding mythological content to Wikipedia?

The sentence in the first paragraph of the 'History' section:

“ There are earlier instances of open source movements and free software such as IBM's source releases of its operating systems in the 1960s and the SHARE user group that formed to facilitate the exchange of such software. ”

...is preposterous. IBM never released the source code of their Operating Systems, even if they originally licensed them for free to mainframe customers. In the IBM System/360 era, what users had access to which most resembled "open source" were Supervisor program assembly listings and "Program Logic Manuals" which described the internals of most, but not all, of an Operating System workings. Other than that, what they did at most was to build up a very limited stock (which they called "a Library") of contributed programs, which were available as open source when the expression had not been coined yet; those programs were distributed on tape, either in source or in both source plus object versions. Later on, when IBM began charging for their software, they revamped it and renamed all of it as "Program Products", and leased or sold them, but again never released the source code; and their feeble "library" of contributed programs dissapeared for good. Besides, the purposes behind the founding of the influential SHARE User Group were vastly more ambitious, complex and far-reaching than merely "to facilitate the exchange of such software." I'll come back to this article in a while. If the lying paragraph in question is still standing, I'll simply delete it. Regards, --AVM (talk) 17:16, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

IBM did release source code of their operating systems, even if you don't believe it.VM and the VM Community: Past, Present, and Future, revised 08/16/97, pg 54 IBM's OCO Policy Birthday Dave Pitts' IBM 7090 support – An example of distrbuted source: Page contains a link to IBM 7090/94 IBSYS source, including COBOL and FORTRAN compilers. Ahwiv (talk) 18:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Removing warnings for a few minutes to make screenshots

Hi, I removed them in order to make some screenshots for a video promoting collaborative work in web enviroment, but I will put them back as soon as I finish. Regards, JoCalejandro —Preceding unsigned comment added by JoCalejandro (talk • contribs) 17:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I already out them back, thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by JoCalejandro (talk • contribs) 17:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Article fixing

added more ciation in market section V1K 09:47, 22 April 2010 (UTC) added more citation in market section V1K 09:14, 20 April 2010 (UTC) added this line in history section "Over the next week Raymond and others worked on spreading the word. Linus Torvalds gave an all-important imprimatur the following day. Phil Hughes offered a pulpit in Linux Journal. Richard Stallman flirted with adopting the term, then changed his mind." Without it, it gives the impression that the word "open source" was coined without the consent of RMS & Linus. V1K 09:14, 20 April 2010 (UTC) The intro was rewritten since nov 2006 into a perfect intro for the article open source software, as that intro belongs there, i restored the intro of the article to november 2006, i hope thats ok.Mion (talk) 23:44, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Secondly, it seems aldo open source software is the most prominent face of open source, 30% of the content on this article belongs on the article open source software, i'll move some sections to the other article to get more balance as open source in different fields. 23:47, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Done, sections are moved back to open source software, the section market is recovered from nov 2006, that version [[8]] was tagged as a qood article, Mion (talk) 00:39, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Honestly, I do not understand why my link to Open World Forum has been removed in the external links. This is the only Open Source event for decision makers, not for profit, supported by all large Open Source communities : OSI, Apache, Eclipse, Linux Foundation, OW2. This is the only event of this kind, gathering all the Open Source decision makers worldwide. By the way, Florence Devouard was a speaker at the 2009 Edition... Much more relevant than other links such as 'http://www.askmar.com/open.html'... ;-) If you need more information, please check http://www.openworldforum.org/about or contact me. Best regards —Preceding unsigned comment added by JCS2050 (talk • contribs) 23:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

External Links : Open World Forum

Hello, I recently added an external link to Open World Forum, that has been removed. Honestly, I do not understand why it was removed. This is the only Open Source event for decision makers worldwide, not for profit, supported by all large Open Source communities : OSI, Apache, Eclipse, Linux Foundation, OW2, Qualipso... This is the only event of this kind, gathering most key Open Source decision makers from all over the world. Just check the 'About' and the Program Committe list : http://www.openworldforum.org/about. By the way, Florence Devouard was a speaker at the 2009 Edition... This link seems to me much more relevant than other accepted links such as 'http://www.askmar.com/open.html'... or others ;-) If you need more information, please contact me. I will be happy to provide more information to demonstrate this link should be added. ;-) Best regards —Preceding unsigned comment added by JCS2050 (talk • contribs) 23:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Category open source

The article lead states "not to be confused with free software" but the category deletion debate defines it both as software and as free software. Then there also is the open source software article that does refer to software suggesting it is not one and the same thing after all. I'm not sure anymore but it seems to me that the buzz word Open Source (at least theoretically) applies to all fields where patents and intellectual property are involved? I'm not familiar enough with Wikipedia categories to re-request a category:Open source I think the same logic should apply to the category and the article name space. 84.104.135.141 (talk) 15:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Open Source Wrox and the Kit Car metaphor

Kit cars are the metaphor for open source.

Building a kit car offers extensive modularity in construction, absolute flexibility in parallel construction and hey, adding new and crazy ideas in as you go is no problem .

testing- well it really is in the REAL world. Just don’t be in front of me and brake all of a sudden

Those big manufacturers are just evil dudes. Just because they spend a few hundred million to produce a quality and stabilised product that shouldn’t mean they can keep the patented design ideas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.130.73.66 (talk) 08:39, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Lack of references to Debian

Shouldn't this article carry some mention of the Debian Project? The Open Source Definition did, after all, start out as an exact copy of the Debian Free Software Guidelines. In my opinion, the DFSG formed the *meaning* of the term Open Source which is more important than which words were attached to that definition. Ean Schuessler (talk) 22:37, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

don;t quite get it

So, if i use some open ource software. lets say some free one to make a game. would that mean that the game i made is also automatically under open source? or can people copyright material made from open software? Gman124 ^talk 15:48, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

In its simplest meaning, open source means software which is supplied with its source code (not just the binary file) which you can look at and inspect. Very useful because one may discover a bug(s) unseen by the original author ect., etc., etc. What you can then do with that software depends on what Open-source license it has been supplied with.--Aspro (talk) 16:13, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Anticipating your next question: The software 'you' write around the open-source, 'you' can copyright as your own (and on your own terms) but the open-source part (depending on the exact licence conditions) you would have to supply under the same licence AND supply its source code. Most of the useful licences will allow you to modify the open-source bit to suit your game (or whatever) in order that it all works together smoothly. You might find Business models for open source software useful as well. If you a keen on knowing more, I suggest you read up on it yourself, as it near impossible to grasp it by just asking a few questions due to its complexity. The fact that you needed to ask the question suggests that perhaps the articles could do with a bit of clarification. --Aspro (talk) 16:52, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank You Aspro. It would be useful to have a section about the licensing part software made from open source. since I think alot of people might come here to search it up, as I use Wikipedia first before going somewhere else too.Gman124 ^talk 17:46, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Beans ain't rails

As the new Java upgrade is proving, IP can force companies to try to squeeze a very large person into a very small swimsuit. If it were an open source library, everyone could pick and choose the tools they need for their particular application, but as no-one can inspect IP source code, the pig in the poke, the entire library, has to be both sent and received. This makes for huge software bloat, a problem which has been a growing (ba-doom-boom) problem for something like twenty or thirty years now. The other effect is limiting the size of the library, which could otherwise be as large as the user-base, which has a positive-feedback effect, if you think about it. Thus the addition of the "Diseconomy of scale" link. I've been a fan of that part of WP for a while now, and it's paying off. If you think of everyone who handles Java in any way as being part of one huge organization, then you see that it's not just a very large organization, it is compartmentalized by IP. This is what makes the whole problem so bad, and this applies to -all- IP software, in an environment that all but guarantees further bloat. --TheLastWordSword--74.41.81.126 (talk) 01:16, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

TheLastWordSword, please, "This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject." WP:FORUM David Woodward ☮ ♡♢☞☽ 14:03, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Coffee in beverages

"Coffee: capsule-based beverage systems such as Nestle's Nespresso or Krups' Tassimo turn home-brewed coffee from an inherently "open-source" beverage into a product limited by the specific range of capsules made available by the system manufacturers." is not a description of anything open source as such, and if this is to be included, then that opens the floodgates; can we please remove this? David Woodward ☮ ♡♢☞☽ 14:00, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. By that same logic, all coffee machines are open source, as you can use any coffee you like in them. And so too is any cup open source, as you can drink any beverage you like out of it. And so is every .. But this has little to do with open source. I'm going to remove the coffee example. Augur (talk) 13:22, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Hyphenation

So what about hyphenation with open source?

Should be discussed. I find that when saying:

"This program is open source", a hyphen is not needed.

But when saying:

"This program is open-source software", a hyphen IS required. Same goes for "open-ended discussion", but in that case, "open-ended" is always hyphenated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.87.145 (talk) 14:14, 20 August 2011 (UTC) 88.112.87.145 (talk) 14:17, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Typo

The Media section begins with "open source" in its first line under the heading so to speak. Shouldn't the O in open source be capitalized? Not picking, but thought I would contribute to y'alls wiki as I've been absent for awhile.

It is located here. --Coffeehound (talk) 23:48, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I edited the section. I don't know if I am allowed to do this, so I am sorry if it upsets anyone. --Coffeehound (talk) 02:34, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Re-creating Category:Open source

There are a lot of articles in Category:Free software culture and documents which don't relate to free software at all. I'd like to re-create Category:Open source to house these and other related articles, and include subcategories like Category:Open content. This category was removed in 2006 after this discussion. – Pnm (talk) 02:01, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Please provide more details on why you think the old consensus from that discussion is wrong and in which way a Open source Category would differ from the current Free software culture and documents. Belorn (talk) 10:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The "Open source" category would include topics which are not about software, like open politics, open-source journalism, open design, and open content. Those topics don't belong directly in a free software category. On second thought though, instead of recreating Category:Open source I think a more concrete category title like Category:Open-source methodologies is better. Here's a mockup. – Pnm (talk) 19:57, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I think I see what you are trying to accomplish, but any category need to have a clear defined definition. To take a category on open source, it would have to follow the open source definition as by OSI. Looking around, I find the Category:Libre as an example that has clear definition, although that one is lacking a source. So while there is nothing wrong with calling it Open-source methodologies, it would beg the question of what the exact definition of Open-source methodologies is. Belorn (talk) 21:02, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Heck, Category:Libre is essentially the category I want to build. I'll expand it a little bit and request a rename at Cfd. As far as a definition, this article's lead sentence works for me: "practices in production and development that promote free redistribution and access to the end product's source materials." It's been roughly stable since "source code" was removed in March 2010. Though synthy, it is clearly defined. –Pnm (talk) 23:05, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I requested a rename to Category:Open methodologies: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2012_January_7#Category:Libre – Pnm (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Applications

The current list is quite long, goes against the WP:NOTDIRECTORY, and is also quite arbitrary in what is on it. If noone objects, I will prune the list, maybe do a summery like in the Free Software#Examples of free software. Including a list of best-known examples can be useful to the reader, but a very long list will not benefit the reader, and will only invite bad edits where someone want to add their favorite software/product/stuff to the list. Belorn (talk) 16:55, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Opening statement

The current text that "In production and development, open source is a philosophy,[1][2] or pragmatic methodology[2] that promotes free redistribution and access to an end product's design and implementation details" is quite unsupported given that both cite 1 and 2 do not make any statement to support the claim that open source is either a philosophy or a pragmatic methodology. Source 1 (Ubuntu) states that open source is: collective power in action. The power of a worldwide community of highly skilled experts that build, share and improve the very latest software together - then make it available to everyone.

Out of this, there is at best some implied/indirect support of some hinted philosophy, or pragmatic methodology, but same could be said about Collective bargaining which is neither described as a philosophy, or pragmatic methodology. If one would dare to guess the intended message, I suspect Ubuntu want to describe the effect and result of open source.

The second source (android), is describing the android philosophy, which in turn states: Android is intentionally and explicitly an open-source -- as opposed to free software -- effort: a group of organizations with shared needs has pooled resources to collaborate on a single implementation of a shared product. The Android philosophy is pragmatic, first and foremost. The objective is a shared product that each contributor can tailor and customize.

It is of course free to interpretation, but from my point of view it looks like they say that Android is the result from the open source community, not the free software community. If they had wanted to say "The Open Source philosophy is pragmatic", they would had said that and not "The Android philosophy is pragmatic". In the end this leave me with the impression that neither those sources are directly supporting the claim that: open source is a philosophy/pragmatic methodology. Instead the only reliable source we got is the OSI open source definition, which is describing software licensed under specific distribution terms. Belorn (talk) 00:22, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Android in it current use and regulations on mobile phones

• does not provide root-access to users to remove unwanted bloatware and pre-installed data collection tools,
• root access is provided to users on other operating systems, like Linux, Windows and Mac,
• of course users should not use the phone under a root or administrator account for security reasons, but OPENess of Software means that its application grants the owner of the device full control about the device and its installed opensource software. There is nothing wrong with the approach that companies want to restrict the alteration of apps and system components, because it will reduce their ability of data collection and reduce their benefit for the commercial use of the collected data e.g. for advertisment. Nevertheless the OPENess of Open Source Software has commercial contraints, that should be visible for users.
• e.g INFO: Compiled Open Source Software does not grant Root/Administrator Access to the Mobile Device Owner. Preinstalled Components for Data Collection cannot be removed.

information good

The "Economic analysis" section opens with "Most economists agree that open-source candidates have an information good" and lists citation 14 as "Grandstand, 1999". Searching Google for '"information good" Grandstand 1999' returns nothing relevant. Is there a better citation for this statement? Greensencha (talk) 06:29, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Found it, it's Ove "Granstrand", not "Grandstand" and his 1999 book "The Economics and Management of Intellectual Property: Towards Intellectual Capitalism". I can't verify that the book actually supports the statement "Most economists agree that open-source candidates have an information good", but I'm going to update the wiki article reference [14] to correct the name mis-spelling and add the book title. Greensencha (talk) 20:04, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

File:Ubuntu 11.04.png Nominated for Deletion

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History and article weight

As it stands, the article is very heavily weighted towards "open source" in its technology-related meaning, specifically with regard to computing and software. While that's accurate in the sense that this is by far the most common use of the term today, we already have a separate article for open-source software (OSS). Imo, this article should focus on the history and use of the term in all known senses and leave the details about OSS to that other article.

The history section in particular needs to go into more detail about the origin of the term and its use generally, especially in non-technological contexts. For example, the 1982 edition of the World Factbook says, at the beginning of its entry about the United States (page 244, emphasis mine), "This 'Factsheet' on the US is provided solely as a service to those wishing to make rough comparisons of foreign country data with a US 'yardstick.' Information is from US open sources and publications and in no sense represents estimates by the US Intelligence Community." Clearly the term was in use back in 1982 in the general sense of freely available and distributed information. I imagine the term probably predates that.

So, basically, if anyone's out there who knows more about this, it would be good to have more detailed information about the etymology and usage of the term in this article. -- Hux (talk) 03:51, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I understand that you want the article to include more detailed information regards to open source outside software development and licensing, but Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint.. (WP:WEIGHT). That said, what I can see, "open source", as a term, has never existed before 1998. The term "Open sources" is synonymous with public sources, and thus refers to sources of information. This is a completely different and unrelated concept than open source. If we applied that context to programs, the source of a program would be the programmer who wrote it.

One would also not call, in 1998, a specific source to be an "open source", rather you would just call the source to be open, or accessible, or public. A group of sources on the other hand was sometimes called open sources, as compared to classified sources.Belorn (talk) 17:24, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Why do you use the year 1998 here?

The term "open source movement" appeared in the early 1980s in the athmospere of Larry Wall, Henry Spencer and Rich Salz. It was a natural result of building the usenet. --Schily (talk) 18:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Sounds skeptical since Raymond is commonly attributed to inventing the term in January 1998. Do you have a source that shows Larry Wall, Henry Spencer and Rich Salz creating a movement that they, in the 1980's called "open source movement"? Belorn (talk) 20:28, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Everybody who was using the news system in the early 1980s, knows that the usenet is a child of OSS and a few years ago, I was able to find news articles from the early 1980s via google that contain the term "opensource movement" in articles from the named persons. Recently, I tried to remember the search criteria but was no longer able to locate these articles - you may try it by your own. Anyway, the "free software movement" from Stallman started with Stallman taking the existing OpenSource Gosling EMACS and distributing a slightly modified version as "free software" under the name GNU EMACS around 1984. --Schily (talk) 08:57, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Got limited time, but sure I can take a early test on the first name and see what I can find. --- . Here is one: [[9]] originally published 1999. This is the first article that I could find that in talks about Larry Wall and the open source movement. Now I might not have found "the right article", or maybe one of the other 2 names has articles in the way that you describe (will search later when I got a free moment), but one should be skeptical in cases like this. It is common that people want to retroactive apply terms to points before it was crated, as a way to extend it. That is however not encyclopedic to do. Belorn (talk) 09:31, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

History of the term 2

There is currently two sections both trying to take on the history of the term open source. One is called History, the other Society and culture. Both is mostly/all unsourced in the regards of any information which dates back before 1998 and thus the creation of the open source movement. I could do a free hand rewrite of it, but without sources it would be better to start with an open discussion first.

• The History section starts with: "The concept of open source and the free sharing of technological information existed long before computers". But what the "concept of open source" is and how it differs from the "free sharing of technological information" is not described, just written as being different. It later says: "Open source on the Internet began when the Internet was relatively primitive". again unsourced, and very unclear if it actually describes the open source definition as described by the open source initiative.

• Society and culture section creates a term called "Open-source culture" and bases most of the section on that term and how the section describes it. Since the name of the term gives some decent amount of Google hits (206k), it would be nice to see some sources and historical description of it, but to my ability I could not find any. It also says that Open-source culture precedes the Free Software movement (1983), with "Sourcery Systems BBS were dedicated to providing source code to Public Domain, Shareware and Freeware programs". It would be nice to know when Sourcery Systems was used like this. Also, todays term of Shareware was created 1984, Freeware was trademarked, and history of freeware says: "term freeware was used often in the 1980s for programs released only as executables, with source code not available". The only part left would be public domain software, but that article does not mention this.

My first thought would be to rewrite History section to simply start talking about free sharing of technological information, and then let the term open-source be used after the events of 1998 has been described. For Society and culture section, the history of monetization of culture could be a good choice for subjects pre-1998, and open-source culture for post-1998. Belorn (talk) 07:48, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

The OpenSource Movement did not start with the "availability" of the internet but with the introduction of the usenet news system and it's comp.sources hierarchy. This worked even over modem connections. For this reason, I have names like Rich $alz (note his own special spelling) and Larry Wall in mind and it is a pity that the names are not mentioned in the article. --Schily (talk) 14:49, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

if you are talking about pre-1998 then the term open source was not invented, and thus any movement would be under different name, and my guess under slightly different concept. Please provide source so one could try to piece together a better history section.Belorn (talk) 15:19, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The term open source movement was in use in the early 1980s already. I remember news articles from e.g. Larry Wall and Rich Salz. It was seen as a movement of liberty amd not political, so the term was not used as a figurehead. Finding the related articles again did not work - probably because of different google search filtering. --Schily (talk) 18:16, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

First rewrite of the first History section. The section is currently a bit long to be a summery of the History of free and open source software article. Other issues I would highlight is the relevance of the included pre-1998 subjects like cooking recipes and patents. If courses given at a restaurant would be provided with its recipe, then it would have some relevance to concept behind open source. As for the patent part, its a bit of a stretch. If the goal is to illustrated how historically it have been shown that sharing is bettering than owning, then I think the practices of early universities/libraries should be ideal. Should be good historical examples. It also reeks of WP:OR and the article trying to push a point to the reader. Belorn (talk) 15:19, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

This is still a problem, added a "cleanup-merge" tag. -- Beland (talk) 16:45, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

References

And... Open Source includes Open Income?

The article lacks economic content. At least a brief independent section on the economics of open source should be included, established financing practices, project costs, estimated social benefits, state of wages (not all participants are income stalled, right?)... djb — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.116.50.141 (talk) 01:06, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

There is two articles already on this subject, Business models for open source software and Open source economics. I suspect writing a summery here would be useful, and later on merge those two articles into one. Belorn (talk) 13:29, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I expanded the section here and linked both of the other articles. -- Beland (talk) 16:53, 29 July 2012 (UTC)