[sclug] Cheap'n'nasty Tesco Linux machines

[John Stumbles]

Tom Carbert-Allen wrote:
> My point was that 'open source' purely means something to which the 
> internal construction is available freely, not the name of a bunch of 
> guys who started a foundation. I now find myself in the very rare and 
> un-comfortable place of saying the US patent office seems to have done 
> something correctly by refusing the patent. 

AIUI it was a trademark, not a patent, for which they applied.


> In my mind the terms open 
> source/free source/public domain code etc all mean pretty much the same 
> and represent a catagrory not a method or product, so to put the 
> ownership of one of them to a group of guys, no matter how good there 
> intentions, seems incorrect. I have no objections with them promoting 
> the good name of the cause, but to claim ownership of any term unless 
> it's a new name they have come up with for software they have written 
> then it seems a little weak.

I think the argument was that if they didn't, someone else would. 
Suppose that someone was Microsoft?

-- 
John Stumbles