Court finds calling stuff open source when it's not is false advertising

Re:Court finds calling stuff open source when it's not is fa... by glind72 on Thursday March 17, 2022 @11:49AM (#30712468)

This is really interesting. Specifically this quote "it’s false advertising to claim that software is “open source” when it’s not licensed under an open source license". Also, is opensource.org and the OSI the only organization that can define it and if so should they be? To me this is more about false advertising and changing a license. Another reason to look at a tool like debricked for license management.

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Re:Court finds calling stuff open source when it's not is fa... by pie_flavor on Thursday March 17, 2022 @12:52PM (#30713261)

The OSI founders are (some of) the inventors of the term Open Source. It'd be like telling Ken Thompson he's wrong about what constitutes Unix Philosophy. Or, for that matter, the Free Software Foundation that they're wrong about what constitutes Free Software.

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Re:Court finds calling stuff open source when it's not is fa... by Dylan16807 on Thursday March 17, 2022 @01:11PM (#30713454)

> It'd be like telling Ken Thompson he's wrong about what constitutes Unix Philosophy.

If his definition has shifted, it might be entirely correct to say he's wrong.

You can also accept his general definition but validly disagree with how exactly to apply it.

Inventing a term gives you a lot of authority but not total control over what it means.

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Re:Court finds calling stuff open source when it's not is fa... by glind72 on Thursday March 17, 2022 @04:53PM (#30715774)

Maybe the original founders yes, but the board and the decisions they make on how it's governed now is not the same group. That's like saying the original authors of the constitution never meant for it to be a living and evolving document. I don't think they ever intended it to be the one and only definition of the term and licenses.

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Re:Court finds calling stuff open source when it's not is fa... by mkr-hn on Thursday March 17, 2022 @12:16PM (#30712790)

Think of this in terms of a brand defending their trademark to avoid losing it through dilution. It's Open Source, a term they created, not a generic concept "open source." I don't like them owning a term that feels like it should be generic and communally defined, but it's not, and they do.

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Re:Court finds calling stuff open source when it's not is fa... by Dylan16807 on Thursday March 17, 2022 @01:21PM (#30713580)

Do they even claim to own the term?

They are the Open Source Initiative, stewards of the Open Source Definition.

The closest I see is a rule then when you're using the OSI trademark or logo you need to follow their definition of "Open Source".

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Re:Court finds calling stuff open source when it's not is fa... by kube-system on Thursday March 17, 2022 @02:49PM (#30714558)

They don't claim to own it, because they legally do not have a right to it. They tried to register it and failed.

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