Talk:Open-source software/Archive 1

I htink the thirst three rows are completely wrong. Open source doesn't mean freedom of copiying or modify, just that the source is public. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.221.57.12 (talk • contribs) 12:13, 13 January 2007.

Actually, that's not quite correct. "Open-source" has an official definition, the same way "free software" does. "Free software" doesn't mean you're free do to whatever with it, and "open-source" doesn't mean that the only requirement for something to be considered "open-source" is that the source code be publicly viewable. 80.233.255.7 13:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The term "open source" was simply not used to describe software prior to 1998. Since then, it has consistently been used to mean more or less the same thing as the FSF's definition of "free software". However, the term was used prior to 1998 outside of the software field, in a sense that has nothing to do with copyright or licensing -- namely, to describe news and intelligence (in the "CIA" sense) sources.

"Open source intelligence" refers to the gathering of intelligence from published sources, as opposed to secret ones. For instance, if the CIA wants to know what is going on in Russia, reading the Russian newspapers is an example of open-source intelligence, whereas sending someone to snoop in the Kremlin's garbage bins, or wiretapping Russian companies, is not. Open source intelligence is much cheaper. :) --FOo 04:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the term "open source" was used prior to the hijacking of the term by the OSI.^[1].198.54.202.166 06:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I worked in the computer industry in the 1990s, and the term was in common usage in the early 1990s. I was asked by a recipient of a product that I had made was "open source" back in 1993.

For clarification, I tend to use the term "distributed under an OSI approved licence" when I am referring to software that falls under Bruce Perens' definition.

Markhobley (talk) 12:40, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I suggest that in this article the term "Open Source" be written with capital letters wherever it is used in the OSI definition. I say this because it is not entirely accurate to claim that only the OSI definition of "open source" is a valid definition.198.54.202.166 06:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I prefer to use "distributed under an OSI approved licence".

Markhobley (talk) 12:58, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

There aren't many games available on Linux. The design and distribution of such games could increase Linux's popularity and usability of open source applications. Open source video games could be used as a marketing tool for Linux as gaming and entertainment is principal reasons people use computers. An example would be Blender for animation.

Are there any open source video games? Let's put those up on the article to mark open source's notability.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.85.138.104 (talk • contribs) 02:03, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Linux gaming, Alphabetical list of open source games, List of open-source games by genre, Open source games… --AVRS 08:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

FYI: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Free_and_open_source_software --Gronky 13:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Image:Opensource.svg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 07:35, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

There is no resonable justification in presenting the media in the particular section of this article.A description is sufficient in the context thus deleting the image and modifying the section accordingly Manquer (talk) 17:22, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you and the bot are talking about different images. I WP:CSDed yours a few days ago, but I don't have the faintest idea what the bot is talking about, that image is a Creative commons licensed image. -- Thinboy00 ^talk/_contribs @75, i.e. 00:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Since Open Source Is Open Source you would think the company would release their own logo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.170.28.94 (talk) 04:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

They did, what they didn't license is their seal of approval, because it should not appear without their approval and so a license is counterproductive. --Thinboy00 @173, i.e. 03:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Most of our references have entire paragraphs of quotations attached. This isn't generally how Wikipedia cites things. It appears to be somewhat of an excuse to include as much verbatim commentary from rms in the article as possible. Chris Cunningham (talk) 19:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Whether it was an excuse or not, it turned out that every case of a quotation in a reference was just calling out the specific words that back up the cited claim. That isn't necessary, and so I've removed all the quotations. RossPatterson (talk) 00:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, cheers. Chris Cunningham (talk) 00:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Please someone try to clearly state the difference between Free Software and Open source software in the lead of both articles. Thank you!--Kozuch (talk) 23:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Extensionally, there is practically no difference. That is, the terms refer to almost precisely the same set of software. The difference is one of connotation, emphasis, and political focus. "Open source software" has emphasized the competitive power of this software in the market and the competitive advantages of using and contributing to it, while "free software" has emphasized the educational and liberating power of being able to learn from and modify the software that you use. --FOo (talk) 06:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be best to merge the two articles.--Kozuch (talk) 14:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

This was proposed a long time ago. However, there are substantial barriers to doing so, not least of which is that there's no firm agreement as to what to call the resulting article. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:13, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

If it is decided that the articles should be merged, the article Free and open source software seems like an appropriate place to do so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leirith (talk • contribs) 04:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There are some differences that I can see. Software that allows modifications to be distributed only as patches may not be "free software" (libre would be a better word to replace "free software" here), but may be under an OSI approved licence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markhobley (talk • contribs) 13:09, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

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may i know wat is the latest oss? if anybody know can tell me... please... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.13.208.207 (talk) 13:12, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

The opposite should be done: "Open Source Software" actually is another word for Free Software, so "Open Source Software" could be covered in either "Free Software" or in "Free and Open Source Software". I propose to remove the tag. DCEvoCE (talk) 23:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

"Free Software", "Open Source Software" and "Free Libre Open Source Software" refer to three different, albeit related, concepts.jonathon (talk) 23:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

No. That's actually not 100% correct. They are different names for the same thing. These names were chosen by different groups for reasons, probably to highlight the ideological differences, but it's still the same thing with a different name. DCEvoCE (talk) 12:23, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

The tag should be moved to the other article. There are three families of articles very much alike: 1) Open Source SW; 2) Free SW; 3) Free and Open Source SW. A neutral point of view suggests that those in 1) and 2) be merged into 3). Lentower (talk) 23:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, and long overdue. It's probably time to try this again, to judge if consensus has changed. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:34, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, then let's do this. I will remove the tags now. DCEvoCE (talk) 12:23, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

For quick reading, 1, Open source software, 2 Free software, 3 Free and open source software. Mion (talk) 08:59, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

what is the meaning of open source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.95.16.52 (talk) 13:43, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I feel that Open Source Software can also be free - there's no 'debate' between Open Source Software and Free Software. There can be Free Open Source Software or software that's Open Source but not free. I don't see it as a versus position. I think there is definitely ideological debate over whether all software should be free, but it's a slightly different proposition to this.

195.10.102.252 (talk) 09:22, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Much of this article leans towards applications of open source in business and industry: either toward the development or support of open source by software companies, or the deployment of open source products in businesses. It reads as if all open-source developers are either employees of an OSS vendor like Red Hat, or of an industrial OSS user like Google, or else are individual "volunteers". This is an inaccurate impression.

Universities are a major center of open source development and deployment. There's a reason we have the "Berkeley" and "MIT" OSS licenses, after all: applied computer science research is heavily connected to open source. (For other examples, see the Glasgow Haskell Compiler and CMU Common Lisp.) Research institutions -- where brains are frequently more readily available than funding -- are also a haven for open source, both for research purposes (like the Arb phylogenetics software) and general purposes (like the HTTP daemon developed at NCSA -- which became Apache).

Business may be where the money is, and it certainly is where the advertising is, but it's not the whole story. --FOo (talk) 08:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Which open source software is better to fallow in developing country specially in Nepal? kindly tell me please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.89.118.131 (talk) 14:17, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I see this article got moved from open-source software to open source software. I think that is a mistake. Whoever moved it cited the talk page. I find only one comment here, from a confused person who says the correct term is open source. OBVIOUSLY the correct term is open source with no hyphen if the whole title is open source. But the comment was by a person who didn't see why using the phrase as an adjective should make a difference in hyphenation! People in computer science are generally deficient in understanding capitalization and hyphenation conventions (often they're not aware that lower-case initial letters in words are sometimes permissible), and this is probably just an instance of that. Would anyone have serious objections to moving it back. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:16, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Unfortunately, certain editors seem to be ignoring this discussion and unhelpfully engaging in wholesale removal of hyphens in adjectival phrases in several other articles. I think all such changes should be undone. For anybody else joining this discussion, please see Wikipedia's MOS:HYPHEN. When "open source" is being used as a noun, it needs no hyphen. When "open source" is being used as an adjectival phrase, it needs a hyphen, e.g. "open-source software", "open-source design", etc. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 23:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I proposed move of Open source hardware / Free and open source software / History of free and open source software — Neustradamus (✉) 20:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Most of the top Google results--SourceForge and W3C, to name a couple--do not use a hyphen. --86.170.240.253 (talk) 22:35, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

The importance of said hyphenation convention is doubtful if English usage on the internet goes against it virtually 100% of the time (except on Wikipedia). The hyphen usage may be optional rather than required, in which case why are we going against the status quo usage in the English language. --Bxj (talk) 23:45, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I just went through the section and it's a mess. Most of it is unreferenced peacock terms, and where there are references it tends to be a single one. The internet is chocca full of stuff for and against open source or commercial type projects, so I don't think this section is anywhere near good enough. Statements like "Companies that offer open source software are able to establish an industry standard and, thus, gain competitive advantage." offer no argument why, no references why, and are just stating an unverified peacockish opinion.

I also think the section should be more clearly delineated into Pros and Cons as on other articles such as Security_by_obscurity, and use a more bulleted style to separate out each of the points. Yb2 (talk) 16:55, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

What you did seems to me to be a form of vandalism. If there are a few peacock terms, tag them individually. If you think there are a lot, tag the section. When you tag the section, you don't also need a dozen individual tags. Yworo (talk) 01:42, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

A form of vandalism? I spent time going through and marking all the peacock terms so that people might actually put some effort into cleaning it up. There were so many it became difficult to know what to do, but it's better that they're marked than left as it was - a unsubstantiated mess. Yb2 (talk) 21:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms might help you out. Line after line is peacock. If that hurts you because of your POV, too bad matey. Fact is I've written open and closed source software, I've got no axe to grind. You can clean it up if you won't let anyone else do it. Like I wrote above, Security_by_obscurity has a much better Pros and Cons section, that might be a good place to start. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yb2 (talk • contribs) 22:11, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

This section is not unbiased. There is not a true and balanced representation of the pros and cons. It is clearly written by someone who sees only the pros.157.145.220.21 (talk) 19:25, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not a fan of pro and con lists anywhere, even if they're represented as prose paragraphs rather than as lists. A pro and con list basically summarizes opinions -- but it usually summarizes them in a way which represents the opinions unfairly, and is inappropriate to an encyclopedia. But I see some specific problems with this one.

The first problem is a style problem: the profusion of "Experts and researchers say ..." and "It is sometimes said ..." weasel words. These don't belong here at all. If X is a fact, we present it as a fact, with a source for that fact. If X is an opinion and that opinion is actually notable, we present it as some specific person's opinion.

The second problem is a related style problem: unattributed opinion claims, even without weasel words. If we're going to cite John Landry's opinions, we need to say, "John Landry says that open source is a good tool to promote a company's image." It isn't enough to just say, "Open source is a good tool to promote a company's image" with a footnote to John Landry. Opinions need to be attributed to their authors in the text, not just in footnotes. (For contrast, see the "Development philosophy" section, where claims made by Eric S. Raymond are correctly attributed to him, by name, in the text.)

The third problem is a content problem: lack of evident notability for opinions. Who is John Landry or Christian Payne and why are their opinions important? (As Napoleon asked, how many battalions do they have?) I'm not saying that those people are definitely non-notable (since I can't tell!) ... I'm just saying that we're using their opinions without saying why they're relevant.

The fourth problem is also a content problem: the use of primary sources as references for general claims. Why is the GNU Classpath Hackers' Guide a source for a general assertion about open-source projects? It isn't -- it's a primary source about GNU Classpath, and (arguably) an example of the general assertion. But Wikipedia doesn't back up general claims with examples; reasoning from examples to a general case is synthesis from primary sources, which we don't do here.

All in all, I think it would be most useful if this article focused on what open-source software is, and not on what various opinionated people feel about it. As such, I'm not sure that "pros and cons" have any sort of place here at all, really. But if they do, it ain't like this. --FOo (talk) 08:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi, a number of sections are back on this article in an attempt to restore the article open source back to its former state good article, the sections itself are good but belong here, see Talk:Open_source#Article_fixing, i hope the order is correct. Mion (talk) 00:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

There has been a lot of heat surrounding the deletion discussion for Dwm. Some people seem to think that WP's notability criteria as applied to OSS leave something to be desired, so I've asked about OSS on the Notability talk page cojoco (talk) 05:18, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I was looking for particularly if there exists an open source development initiative that aims to compete with Facebook. I was also looking for tips if there were any such thing as a possible next big thing coming from these quarters. __meco (talk) 20:39, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Mashable had an article on "10 of the best open source social platforms" . Elgg stood out as similar to Facebook, and was voted "best open source social networking platform" in 2008. ≈Netizen1138 (talk) 02:22, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

See also StatusNet and Diaspora*. --FOo (talk) 05:43, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I am pretty much impatient when it comes to search for information in English (I'm a foreigner). Thus, I want to ask a simple question, because it's unclear for me after reading the top of the article: is it possible to have a, let's say, commercial video game that is Open Source? - ZuTheSkunk (talk) 00:18, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

There is plenty of commercial open source software, such as JBoss and MySQL. Some commercial video game engines have been released as open source, such as the Doom engine, but there are few (if any?) complete commercial video games that are open source.

Could you rewrite the lead to make this more obvious to readers like you?

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:11, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Right now, the "History" section says:

"... The open source label came out of a strategy session held on April 7, 1998 in Palo Alto in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator (as Mozilla). ..."

Then a few paragraphs later, we see:

"The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was formed in February 1998 by Eric S. Raymond and Bruce Perens. ..."

It seems impossible that the non-profit organization Open Source Initiative could have been started before the term "open source" was devised to have this meaning. Does anyone have a citable source from which we can fix this? --Karl Fogel 02:18, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

We can fear the man, if we don't were stupid. we can fear the corporate man, if we don't were stupid. If we fear both were stupider. Right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.172.6 (talk) 06:14, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

According to the article, if a application is to allow redistribute, modify, derivate etc. on its source code, but copyright of all modification/derivate belong to the original author (example: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/76498 ) can it be count as opensource?C933103 (talk) 12:18, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

If the original author requires copyright assignment for modifications to be included in the project, it's still considered to be free/open source software. What this allows is for the original author to change the license on the entire project without asking permission from all the others who have contributed to it. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who holds the copyright and what their intentions are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.155.118.246 (talk) 22:15, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I need a little help to set up my traffic flow and account transfer set-up — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.185.53.82 (talk) 16:38, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. The terms "free software", "open source software", and "free/open source software" essentially are talking about the same thing. Yet at the top of each article we have this "not to be confused with" nonsense. (Agreed: these three terms should not be confused with "freeware".) But to most folks the three terms mean the same thing. Free Software is open source: you can get the source code, and most (but not all) open source software qualifies as Free Software. FOSS/FLOSS is the same thing: free and open source go together. It can't be free (libre) unless you get the source code with it! As things are now, it's very confusing. The three articles should be combined and clarified, under the term FOSS or maybe FLOSS, and both the "Free Software" and "Open Source" articles should redirect to the FOSS article. 207.155.118.246 (talk) 22:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that using the Distinguish tag is bad, and do not follow the intent the policy describe when one should use it. That said, the lead could include a sentence, both on Free software and Open-source software, that there is a different name, and in short what the main difference in policy are. I personally just havent had time to do that yet. Belorn (talk) 14:52, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Are they the same? Stallman (who codified the concept of 'free software') would definitely disagree - see his article "Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html). True, for ordinary people they are indistinguishable, but surely as a reference work Wikipedia should make it clear that the 'experts' distinguish the two. However it is a technical point (sorry Richard!) and I agree that the articles would be better combined under FOSS. Leornian (talk) 00:14, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Hello. I hate to interrupt or spoil the party, but the acronym OSS has stood for operations support systems--the software systems that automate telecom and other communications carrier/service provider networks and operations--since the 1960s. Since that time the only change has been to add the corollary, BSS, or business support systems, which automate the business side of a carrier/service provider, such as the billing and customer care processes. An entire industry with annual expenditures in the range of $15-18 billion has been built around this term. So while one can appreciate the headlong drive to invent yet another acronym in the technology market...as Barack might say, "It's what they do"...it is also a great idea to do simple searches to learn whether the term/acronym has been in use for about 50 years.

That said, there is something of an intersection of sets occurring today. A company named Transverse http://www.gotransverse.com/ has launched an open source offering in the OSS market. If a service provider chooses to go the open source route, the software is free and Transverse makes its money through integration and other supporting services. If the carrier does not wish for its developments/extensions to become part of the open source pool, it pays Transverse what amounts to a standard license fee just like any other software.

Transverse wisely does not characterize its offering as "OSS for the OSS market." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rexrange (talk • contribs)

My +1 for this. Please not use this abbrevieation for Open SOurce it's bit confusing! --BogdanMart (talk) 15:37, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree this causes confusion. Even perhaps the main article on Open Source Software should disambiguate the term, e.g. a comment along the lines of "not to be confused with Operational Support Systems". Perhaps OSSW is a better acronym, where SW stands for SoftWare? A quick anecdote is that I once attended an interview where I was asked which Open Source Software I had worked on, whereas in fact the OSS in my CV "clearly" related to Operational Support Systems! However, I think the recruitment agency involved had merely done a keyword search for OSS in my CV, and "blindly" set me up with an interview! How irritating! a case of TMT (Too Many TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms)) perhaps? ;-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.254.68.36 (talk) 12:34, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

It is uncommon to write "open source software" with a dash. On en.wikipedia.org, dash-free form gives 2653 search results, while with-dash form gives 703 search results. OSI never uses "open-source" I believe. Should this be unified? Or is there a "first come, first serve" rule in place for dashes in titles? --Qubodup (talk) 13:17, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I believe the naming of this article is currently incorrect, far from a trivial issue for anyone trying to use it as a reference in describing this term to the public and should be posted to the Dispute resolution noticeboard however there should be a "extensive discussion" here first. Please post additional comments here. --Grantbow (talk) 12:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The history is:

• 8 January 2010 Michael Hardy (talk · contribs) moved Open source software to Open-source software: I see no objections on the talk page more than three months after I proposed this move, and I see one expression of agreement.

(that's a reference to /Archive_1#Move)

• 20 January 2008‎ Thumperward (talk · contribs) moved Open-source software to Open source software over redirect: moving back per user talk, for now. this isn't necessarily opposition to the move, but it should be discussed in a wider forum first
• 20 January 2008‎ Dicklyon (talk · contribs) moved Open source software to Open-source software over redirect: use English punctuation
• 10 January 2008‎ Thumperward (talk · contribs) moved Open-source software to Open source software over redirect: Wikipedia consistency; the hyphenated version is of dubious officiality anyway
• 10 January 2008‎ Eliyak (talk · contribs) moved Open source software to Open-source software over redirect: grammar
• 20 December 2007‎ Thumperward (talk · contribs) moved Open-source software to Open source software: consistency
• 28 August 2005‎ Jhballard (talk · contribs) edited text copied/derived from "open source" (as a start) to have an article specific to open-source software only
• 26 July 2003‎ Karada (talk · contribs) created #redirect open source software

--Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:46, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

• The chronology of this thread is all screwy. The hyphen is required by all of the authoritative style guides on both sides of the Atlantic. And it's required by en.WP's MoS. Tony (talk) 13:28, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

It does seem odd that an editor who doesn't know a hyphen from a dash would be complaining about punctuation and style. I moved this years ago to reflect the fact the WP style is to respect the best guides and punctate for clarity, rather than to follow the style in sources that have dropped the hyphen because when talking to each other within a field people have learned to parse the phrase well enough that the inherent ambiguity doesn't bother them any more. Like with small-cell carcinoma versus small cell carcinoma, where the AMA style guide used to recommend the hyphen when writing for the public, but no longer does. In WP, there is no cost, only benefit, in using the most clear form. This is not about "source software" that is open, but rather software with open source; the hyphen tells the reader that, which is why all the best guides recommend it. Consider WP:SSF when looking at sources; to find the ones trying to communicate to non-experts, look beyond the experts, to the communicators; there are plenty of great sources with the hyphen. Dicklyon (talk) 21:24, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The summary is emphasises the wrong thing:

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and …

The Free Software Foundations criticism of the term Open Source is that people define it as what comes to mind when reading the name. But the actual thing is very similar to Free Software.

I propose a rewrite of this summary, starting with words from the Open Source definition:

Open source software doesn't just mean access to the source code: It also means the ability/permission to distribute, change and use. The licence must apply to all and any person for any field of endeavour (without discrimination) on any technology (technology neutral), and must not restrict other software (allow other software on same media etc).

study, change, improve and also to distribute the software. 92.40.253.51 (talk) 10:09, 27 September 2012 (UTC)Richard Delorenzi

So long its sourced (like to OSI's definition), I do not see any problem with that change. Belorn (talk) 12:33, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The text at no cost is not a good introduction because people can be charged to download open-source software or for receiving the source code. THe sentence ...provides the rights to study, change and distribute the software at no cost to anyone should be changed asap. Removing at no cost should be enough. Smaffulli (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:50, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

After cecking on google that the book cited in [1] http://books.google.com/books?id=04jG7TTLujoC&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q=%22at%20no%20cost%22&f=false doesn't contain the sentence at no cost I have removed it from the entry. Smaffulli (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:56, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

This article is wrong from the start. Open source software is nothing more than software made available in compilable source-code form. Whereas the article talks about different ways (one in particular) of licencing said source code. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hrgwea (talk • contribs) 07:35, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

The name Open Source is currently used to describe software that meets the OSI definition. I doubt that anyone ever used the two words together before the OSI coined the name (even without the capitalisation). The problem with the name is that it is understood to mean “source code available”. However the act of misunderstanding what was said, does not change the meaning of what a person was trying to say.

The phrase "open source" does not imply anything more than being able to view the source. Its meaning is ONLY the direct opposite of "closed source", which likewise does not imply anything other than NOT being able to view the source. This whole article relies solely on the OSI/FSF's double-speak redefinition and expansion of an English phrase with only one simple meaning, to include whatever the OSI/FSF unilaterally deems it should include. As such, this article is deceptive, non-neutral, and ultimately relies only on a single source (the OSI/FSF).

I think the phrase "open source" should be a disambiguation page that leads to articles named in such a way to limit them to meaningfully defined scope. For example, this particular article should be renamed something along the lines of "OSI/FSF definition of open source", and everything else in the content that is outside that scope should be deleted or moved to another appropriate article.

Badon (talk) 01:07, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the overall goal of reformulating this article, although I have a different view of the problem... the problem is that (at least as described in these articles) there isn't much difference between open source software and free and open source software, yet there's a significant disagreement over which term should be used. As a result, there's also disagreement over the meaning of OSS: by saying that FOSS is "both free and open" we define "open" to mean simply open, i.e. not connoting freedom. But OSS as defined by others (OSI) does incorporate notions of free software. Without agreement on the meaning of OSS, it's hard to have an article about it.

You can see that tension in this article. It opens by saying OSS "is computer software with its source code made available and licensed with a license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to study, change and distribute the software at no cost to anyone and for any purpose", but later tries to contrast this with FOSS. The contrast is fairly weak and focuses on emphasis.

How does Wikipedia typically resolve ontological/usage disputes? I think it splits articles and/or "acknowledges the disagreement." In this case, since FOSS clearly defines itself as the combination of free software and open source software, it's probably most reasonable to refocus this article on just OSS as a methodology. In particular, I'd get rid of the "definitions" and "Comparisons -> free software" sections... that could either become a new article, or merged into Open_source_definition, or, since the distinction is rooted in historical events, moved into History of free and open-source software. The remainder should be refocused on the methodology and its impact on software development.

It's not ideal since not everybody favors the FOSS terminology, but it's semantically more helpful to have a distinction between "free" and "open", and will help focus the articles. And I think Wikipedia does tend to favor semantic distinction in cases like this. Proxyma (talk) 04:03, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

The article absolutely has to discuss and contrast the various definitions, and compare to what Stallman calls Free Software, which is probably a subset of open-source software, if I understand his point. I think it attempts to do this already, but it could use work. Probably not a huge overhaul though. Nor division into multiple articles if sections will do. Dicklyon (talk) 05:46, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Describing FOSS as a subset of OSS would be fine with me. The problem is just that there are two ways of viewing OSS vs FOSS. You can either view it as "set/subset" (FOSS is ontologically a subset of OSS), or as an "either-or" choice (you either take the OSS pragmatist stance or the FOSS activist stance). I think it's difficult to support both approaches in the current structure, but certainly more modest improvements are also possible. Proxyma (talk) 06:34, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:CONCEPTDAB, we should certainly not make Open source software into a disambiguation page. However, I very much agree that the OSI definition should not be taken as the only one, and that we should compare/contrast different definitions of "open-source" and talk about how they relate to and differ from the concept of free software. In my opinion, open source software should mostly be focused specifically on contrasting open vs. closed source software, and talk about open-source software development practices, the benefits (security, etc.) of open-source, and other such things that are specifically related to the effects of the source code being visible to developers. I think that free software, on the other hand, should focus mostly on free licensing, how patents affect innovation, efforts by monopolistic software companies to sabotage the free software movement (e.g. UEFI) etc. I believe that Free and open source software should simply redirect to free software (which is by definition both free and open source), or if people are strongly opposed to that, it should only be a very brief (i.e. a paragraph or two) disambiguation/summary type page that simply serves to point people to free software and open-source software (and maybe a few other articles like Linux, GNU, etc. -- Mesoderm (talk) 07:15, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

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Please see related discussion at Talk:Free_software_movement#Free_and_open-source_software_movement. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:24, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

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I have 20 discs prepared on microsoft word from 1992 to 2012. My computer has automatically installed revisions at least twice a month. I am not able to open the documents

Try Libre Office. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:04, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

On OSI website it is Open Source (name caps, no hyphen).

The spelling should be unified in the article. What is the canonical form for use on Wikipedia? J.Dong820 (talk) 13:46, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

+1 I am not aware of anyone else who uses a hyphen besides Wikipedia. A quick Google search of "open-source" only returns articles where it is spelled without the hypen, the sole exception being this article.66.187.233.202 (talk) 17:21, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

We aren't completely alone on this -- TED uses the hyphenated form -- but should call it what GNU, FSF, Mozilla, Slackware, Microsoft, and XKCD call it. The all-caps, however, goes against our manual of style, so the new article name should be "Open source software" --Guy Macon (talk) 21:18, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

The History section is a mess. There is a fair amount of rambling and repetition. A good start would be to put it in chronological order; right now it starts in the late 1990s, and eventually works its way back to 1985. I'm not familiar with the subject but I may take a stab at this. Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:11, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't believe that the article title accurately reflects the contents. "open-source" software started long before the 1990s, and the lack of history causes a slanted perspective. This article seems to be about open-source as defined by the FSF, and IMO the title should reflect this (somehow). Peter Flass (talk) 16:54, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

I think you are confusing Open Source with Free Software. Open Source is not defined by the FSF, Free Software is (and the history of Free Software definitely dates back to the 1980s). In fact, the FSF opposes the term Open Source. Open Source started in 1998 as something that was meant to replace the term Free Software for the general public. The term Open Source is defined and promoted by the OSI. Now, the History section points to the more general article on History of free and open-source software, which describes the whole history of shared information, and I think that is sufficient.—J. M. (talk) 19:03, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Maybe this article shoule be titled "Free Software Movement"?Peter Flass (talk) 14:18, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

No. This article is about Open Source. Not about Free Software. Open Source and Free Software are two different things. Free Software has its own separate article. The Free software movement article already exists (and Open-source software movement, too).—J. M. (talk) 14:35, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Please participate in the discussion I started over at Talk:Free software movement: Merger proposals: the issue of the separate Open-source software movement article.

Please comment there and not here for a centralized discussion. Thank you.

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@J.M. took issue with me correcting "...all of which are [..] software" to "..all of which is [..] software". As far as I'm aware software is a collective noun. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Openflyingsourcer (talk • contribs) 14:25, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

We seem to be having an edit war about where this redirect should point. I did expect a bit of trouble, but I had rather hoped we'd have a discussion. I suggest Open-source software, and others seem to want Open-source model. Open-source model appears to me to be a philosophical discussion about the philosophy of open source in general and its applications in many fields. Open source is less philosophical and more practical. My feeling is that wp:Article titles suggests that "The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles." Someone looking for "Open source" is most likely looking for information on software, not "open source colas" or "free beer", to pick a couple of section headings at random. Peter Flass (talk) 17:33, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

"Open source software" is far more popular than "open source model": fgnievinski (talk) 23:26, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth I've significantly updated and expanded the Open source (disambiguation) page/article. You may consider using it as your redirecting jump off point - or not. Sometimes its annoying the extra link, but sometimes once you get to a disambiguation page you realize there's a whole lot more to a word or few than you initially imagined. Feel free to improve that disambiguation page. Also, couldn't the open-source model apply to things beyond software - and therefore be "fixed"? I'd do it but I'm not an expert and would likely botch it up. I just saw a tremendous void on that disambiguation page that I could easily fill. ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 11:23, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

"Open source" (without dash, with dash, and disambiguation) are now redirected to the improved Open source disambiguation which may become a WP:broad concept article to reduce the extreme number of disambiguation-link alarms. Please read more on the latest developments on Talk:Open source and feel free to improve Open source. ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 17:07, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

I've removed the mention of a trademark on "OSI Certified": according to the USPTO's database, this mark is "DEAD", having been "Abandoned" on August 23, 2002, just two years after it was registered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Haeleth (talk • contribs) 00:17, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

In the definition it suggests/states that the DFSG uses the term open source. It does not. 188.29.164.102 (talk) 10:00, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

It says “Open-source software (OSS) is computer software with its source code made available and …” — this is wrong. The OSI say “Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria: …” 188.29.164.102 (talk) 10:00, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Article lacks NPOV and ignores that the availability of source code for use, modification and analysis only started with FOSS in the late 1980s. Large universities, corporation, NASA and government agencies used Unix and modified it and its tools for their own use. The idea that you can have the source code, modify it and use it for your own originated at least a decade before the 1984's GCC compiler. Suggestions: Credit that open source is access to use, examine and modify the source code for your own use; and that large scale adoption of this principle started in the 1970s with Unix at the university, corporate and government level. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:D591:5F10:F1BD:1430:7D95:C2F3 (talk) 22:42, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

While source code licenses were available for paying customers of Unix, they were not open source licenses, as free redistribution was not allowed. - MrOllie (talk) 23:37, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Your post does not seem to make much sense (the sentences are contradicting each other), but as for the code sharing in the 1970s and early 1980s, the article actually mentions it in the History section. But the article is about open-source software, and Open Source started in 1998 (even though similar or almost identical concepts like free software existed decades earlier, they are not the topic of this article), so it's quite natural that an article about open-source software is indeed mainly focused on open-source software.—J. M. (talk) 23:55, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

हमने यूट्यूब पर अपनी वीडियो डाली नेट खत्म होने की वजह से वीडियो प्रोसेस में 2409:4063:4E9F:86C3:5DCD:4F75:2FEA:13BF (talk) 08:14, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Since the article open-source model was merged into open source, I think this article pretty much covers the same topic as open source. Pretty confusing if you ask me, I personally wouldn't know how to resolve this issue. –Jiaminglimjm (talk) 20:21, 10 June 2022 (UTC)