[sword-devel] Re: Re: Re: Development Process

[Leandro Guimaraens Faria Corsetti Dutra]

Em Tue, 01 Jun 2004 23:03:26 -0700, Chris Little escreveu:

> I wanted to point out that you 
> were just being pedantic, without any real reason or need to be.

	I just wanted to get the terms clear, as I think them to be
important.

	It is a sad time when being correct is automatically equated
with pedantism, and relishing imprecision is the acceptable thing.

	Anyway, if you wanted to tell me I am a pedant, arguing the
points I made is a queer way of expressing yourself...


> As surely as you pointed out that, under an overly pedantic
> interpretation, Troy's message had an error, I did the same with
> yours.

	Unfortunately I think you added to the original error...


> You replied, apparently not getting the irony, thinking you'd just
> correct me.  What's the point?  I don't think there is one.

	The point is that concepts and terms should be clear, or we
loose expressiveness -- in other words, we get communications
problems.

	If Sword is to be a close-knit community where everyone agrees
on its particular interpretation of common terms, then it is OK, but
this is hardly welcoming.  It might still be what you desire, in this
case there is no sense indeed in continuing the debate.


> Anyway, all rational readers should just click on the next message and 
> quit reading this one.

	So why did you bother answering?


>> > Free Software is definitely about licensing.  Open Source Software just 
>> > indicates that the source code is available.
>> 
>> 	No, that would be MS's and Sun's Shared Source.
> 
> No, shared source isn't open.  Source code isn't publicly available under 
> shared source.

	OK, now that you added the 'publicly'.


> It is under open source.  But open source software could 
> quite as easily have restrictive licensing (and fail the OSI's OSD).

	By definition open source is what conforms to the OSI's OSD.
Why do you think otherwise?  The OSI guys were the ones to create the
term.


>> 	Open Source, while indicating deep philosophical differences,
>> was originally but a marketing term for free software for suits.
> 
> Once it was defined, open source was intended as a disambiguation of the 
> term 'free software'.

	Yes, so?


>> 	Correct but irrelevant.  The term open source was coined by
>> the same people who founded OSI and then adopted DFSG as the OSD.
> 
> Wrong.  The term open source was coined by Christine Peterson, President
> of the Foresight Institute (http://www.foresight.org/), who did not found
> the OSI, has no relation to the DFSG, and is not even, for that matter, a
> programmer.  OSI adopted her term, sure, but don't pretend that they
> invented it.  Even Christine Peterson can't claim to being the true
> originator of this term since it has LONG been in use as a term referring
> to any publicly available source of information, prototypically
> newspapers.

	Ops... now you have some serious piece of alternative History
here... this is not the sense used in software.  If you want to apply
it to software, go ahead, but it is bound to cause confusion.

	BTW do you have some reference supporting this etimology, and
specifically the idea that the software usage of the term is related
to the journalistic one?  Not that it would change the fact that the
current software usage is different.

	But coming to think of that, this explanation contradicts your
assertion that "open source was intended as a disambiguation of the 
term 'free software'".

	Anyway... I don't see why taking so much offense at this.  You
probably could correct my English quite a lot, and I'd be tremendously
happy to learn.


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Leandro Guimarães Faria Corsetti Dutra           +55 (11) 5685 2219
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