[Gllug] Web filtering

[Rev Simon Rumble]

On Wed 09 Jul, David Damerell bloviated thus:

> Um. SPI still do hold the "open source" trademark.

Wasn't it denied?

> but nevertheless "open source" does have
> a generally understood meaning, and if people _are_ going to use that
> term they ought to know what it means. Mr. Faulkner does appear to use
> that term, so he ought to find out what it means.

As far as I'm concerned, and I think you'll find this confusion
applies elsewhere, "open source" means that the source code is
available.  Hell, that makes SCO open source!

On Wed 09 Jul, Tethys bloviated thus:

> It's hard to justify your standpoint. The very term "open source"
> was coined by the same people who wrote the open source definition,
> to mean software that complies with that definition.

I'm not sure that was actually the first time the term was used...

> You are of course welcome to use it to mean whatever you want, but
> that would be going against common usage, and would not be
> particularly productive.

Common usage amongst free software enthusiasts, you mean.  Most
outside our community, including the press, the term to mean "source
code is available".

> BTW, what legal weight do you think the term "free" has?

True, my choice of words was a bit dumb.  However, when you say "free
software", there can be no doubt.  What's more, the FSF's definition
and activism has led to the term being indisputably what everyone
else thinks it means.  It gets tricker when you just use "free" on its
own because most people mean "no cost".

-- 
Rev Simon Rumble <simon at rumble.net>
www.rumble.net

Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed
without legislation.

- Milton Friedman
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