| No more Mr. Open Source Nice Guy |
Jun. 22, 2007
For many years, the term "open source" has been subject to abuse. Despite efforts by the OSI (Open Source Initiative) to trademark the phrase, the USPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) claimed the phrase was too generic to be trademarked, thereby weakening efforts to guard against its improper usage, according to Danese Cooper, secretary and treasurer of the OSI board.
Now, however, after much more frequent assaults on the phrase, Michael Tiemann, president of the OSI and Red Hat's VP of open source affairs, is coming out strongly in its defense.
What happened was that in the past year and a half, there have been numerous new MPL-based (Mozilla Public License) licenses appearing. Companies like SugarCRM, Socialtext, Scalix, and Zimbra have all created their own derivatives of the MPL.
Several of these licenses require developers to use "badgeware," a prominent display of the licensing company's chosen logo, if they use the code. In SugarCRM's case, that's a "Powered by SugarCRM" logo that must be at least 106 x 23 pixels in size. This, in turn, must link to the SugarCRM open source website.
None of these so-called open source licenses have been approved by the OSI. Despite this, these "open source" licenses and their products have been out in the world without effective counteraction from the OSI.
The result of all this is that at least half-a-dozen different companies today are claiming their products to be "open source" based on nothing but their own interpretation of the phrase.
In response to a blog by Dana Blankenhorn, asking How far can open source CRM get?, Tiemann has finally taken up the problem of non OSI-approved "open source" licenses.
In a position statement on the OSI's website, Tiemann opened with, "When is the OSI going to stand up to companies who are flagrantly abusing the term 'open source'? The answer is: starting today."
Until last year, Tiemann stated that abuse of the term "open-source" wasn't much of a problem. A simple letter to the organization or company was all that was required.
Then, said Tiemann, "Starting around 2006, the term open source came under attack from two new and unanticipated directions: the first was from vendors who claimed that they have every bit as much right to define the term as does the OSI, and the second was from vendors who claimed that their license was actually faithful to the Open Source Definition (OSD), and that the OSI board was merely being obtuse (or worse) in not recognizing that fact. (At least one vendor has pursued both lines of attack)."
This was "the first time we have had to confront agents who fly our flag as their actions serve to corrupt our movement," he added. Some of them were abusing the term for business gain, according to Tiemann, because, as Blankenhorn put it, open source is "the only way in which CRM start-ups can elbow their way into the market today."
These companies, as Tiemann noted, are doing this without actually having their software legitimately be "open source" under an OSI-approved license. "This flagrant abuse of labeling is not unlike sweetening a mild abrasive with ethylene glycol and calling the substance Toothpaste," Tiemann continued. "If the market is clamoring for open source CRM solutions, why are some companies delivering open source in name only and not in substance? I think the answer is simple: they think they can get away with it."
Tiemann admits that "As President of the OSI, I've been remiss in thinking that gentle but firm explanations would cause them to change their behavior. I have also not chased down and attempted to correct every reporter who propagates these misstatements (the way that Richard Stallman does when people confuse free software with free beer, or worse -- to him -- open source). I have now come to realize that if we don't call them out, then they will get away with it."
The solution?
"So here's what I propose: let's all agree -- vendors, press, analysts, and others who identify themselves as community members -- to use the term 'open source' to refer to software licensed under an OSI-approved license," suggested Tiemann.
"Just because a CEO thinks his company will be more successful by promoting proprietary software as open source doesn't teach anything about the true value of open source. Hey -- if people want to try something that's not open source, great! But let them call it something else, as Microsoft has done with Shared Source," said Tiemann.
"Open Source has grown up. Now it is time for us to stand up. I believe that when we do, the vendors who ignore our norms will suddenly recognize that they really do need to make a choice: to label their software correctly and honestly, or to license it with an OSI-approved license that matches their open source label," he concluded. Tiemann then asked others in the real open source community to join him in defending the right and proper use of the phrase.
The current list of OSI approved licenses (in alphabetical order) can be found on the OSI's website. This listing also includes links to each license's approved language.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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