| > Open Source was always about developer benefit. The movement around end-user benefit is called Free Software. It's complicated. I think you're right as far as the effect of "open source", and probably also perception of "open source". And perception is of course nine tenths of reality. But if you ask some of the folks who were around early at OSI, and some who are around now, like Simon Phipps and Bruce Perens, I think they'll tell you "open source" is just a rebranding of free software. Having totally eclipsed FSF for their intended audience, OSI are now reaching back to that idea more and more explicitly, as by making "software freedom" a (vague) part of their license review criteria: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.... Very recently updated: https://opensource.org/approval The barrier has always been fluid. Earlier on, when Bruce was feeling edged out of OSI: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1999/02/msg01641.html So there's a cycle in the history. How much that history really matters, and how much is just palace intrigue or inside baseball, stands wide open to interpretation. |