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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

> I think you're trolling, yes?

No, I'm not trolling.

I don't think the OSI should have taken an existing generic industry term and tried to trademark it and give it a new definition. I think that was a real ethical mistake and it was also a strategic mistake.

I think it would have been better for everyone if they called it OpenFoo (TM) software, or something like that that they came up with themselves and they could legally protect.

Now they're reduced to just trying to complain when people don't look at things their way.

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“open source” was not a term, much less an industry term, before the OSI founders came up with it.

Source: I was in the industry and Free Software movement at the time.

More background: https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source...

> “open source” was not a term, much less an industry term, before the OSI founders came up with it

I'm afraid this is not true.

The article you've linked to claims to have coined 'open source' in reference to software in 1998.

But for example here's one earlier written reference from 1996 http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html.

Here's a more general discussion about the false claim of the OSI to have coined it http://hyperlogos.org/blog/drink/term-Open-Source.

Another fact is that the USPTO rejected the OSI's attempt to trademark, because even they realised it was a simple descriptive term.

Wow! At first I thought you had found a place where these two words occurred after each other but it seems to have been used a few times I must admit I have been wrong.

It is so nice when someone takes the care to actually provide evidence for their claims.

That said, today I would still say OSIs definition has won and if anyone presented me with code and claimed it was open source and it didn't match OSIs standard then I personally would be disappointed.

But I probably won't claim anymore that they are stealing our term.

In 1985 "Computer Chronicles" on PBS said "open source code" while talking about Bill Joy and his new startup.

https://twitter.com/OMGerdts/status/1245905516913623040?s=20

Examples from even earlier: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=open+source+before%3...

Unfortunately most of these seems to be unrelated to software licensing, but I learned a new hack (before:) and also I got another confirmation that Google search results are finally starting to improve after 10 years...!

Okay, in that case...

> They should have used a new term, not taken an existing one.

False premise. They didn't take "an existing generic industry term" and "give it a new definition". They took an existing definition[1] and tried coming up with a catchy new turn of phrase that they hoped would be adopted in lieu of "free software", and they were wildly successful. So successful that people convince themselves that "open source" must have already been a thing when Christine Peterson suggested it at the meeting where they settled on using it.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline...

> So successful that people convince themselves that "open source" must have already been a thing when Christine Peterson suggested it at the meeting where they settled on using it.

No it was already a thing!

She claimed to have coined it in 1998.

It was already in use at least as early as 1996.

http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html

I don't have any great insight that's not in the public record, but from reading that announcement and the other article you linked, observations:

- There are a bunch of references to other folks using the term, all of which are big names I recognize as being pioneers in open source consistent with the OSI's notion of it.

- The mailing list posts enumerate a bunch of advantages that would not follow from mere availability of source code without additional rights consistent with the OSI's general notion.

The sense I get from this is that the term probably was in use already, but it pretty much meant what the OSI says it does, not just "the source is out there."

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