Tarus Balog

The Rewriting of Open Source History

Speaking of misinformation, you seem to be spreading your fair share of it, Mr. Byron.

I've already responded to your post in the comments on my blog. It was intended as a post about how the term "open source" is being weakened by commercial software in order to blunt its impact on the market. It was not intended as a complete and accurate history of commercial software itself. However, you decide to pull out a few paragraphs pretty much unrelated to that argument in an attempt to discredit my opinions. I believe they call that a "straw man" fallacy.

You state "Open source is simply a set of licensing terms and conditions, embraced by all software suppliers including Microsoft". I disagree. I claim that open source software is software that meets the OSI definition of "open source". Period. Either you meet it or you don't, and if you don't, don't call your product open source.

Furthermore, I'm pretty cool with Microsoft, et. al. releasing software as "open source" (per the definition). What I'm not cool with is companies calling themselves "open source" when in fact all they do is release a small "core" set of code as open in order to drive people to their proprietary products or extensions. You can bet that any code Microsoft releases under an OSI approved license is done in order to ultimately sell more Windows and Office. To me that's fine, that's what software companies do, but then again Microsoft doesn't label itself as an open source company.

You also put words into my mouth as far as "free" versus "open" software. No where in my post do I mention Stallman or his four freedoms. I was speaking directly to the matter of "open source".

I also stand by my statement that Bill Gates did usher in modern era of commercial software, although of course I realize that the software industry existed before then. It was just that software was always tied to hardware, and thus wasn't truly considered an industry unto itself. It's similar to the fact that Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile, but he sure brought it to the masses. I asked in my comments for you to explain the fact that IBM let Gates hold on to the license for the software for the IBM PC if they truly understood the market. My reason is that commercial software was not seen as an industry unto itself before then.

Of course, this was all pretty much anecdotal and off the point of the post. I just put it there to illustrate that software code used to be exchanged much more openly (although not truly open source) prior to Gates. I could remove it and still make my point.

I also stand by my statement that Perens and Raymond formalized the definition of open source software. Sure, open source software existed before then, but to my knowledge this was the first time someone had tried to define the term. It seems now that people like yourself would like to redefine it, and that's what I am working to stop.