Defining Open Source

• Main Author: Russ Nelson
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Carleton University 2007-09-01
• Series: Technology Innovation Management Review
• Online Access: http://timreview.ca/sites/default/files/Issue_PDF/september07_osbr.pdf

The Open Source Initiative and the Free Software Foundation share a common goal: that everyone should be free to modify and redistribute the software they commonly use. 'Should' is of course a normative word. For the FSF, 'should' is a moral imperative. Anything else is an immoral restriction on people's activities, just as are restrictions on speech, press, movement, and religion. For the OSI, freedom is a necessary precondition for a world where "software doesn't suck", in the words of a founder of the OSI. The FSF started from its founder's GNU Manifesto widely published in 1985. Given the manifesto's hostility to copyright, and given the failure of the Free Software Foundation to gain any traction amongst commercial users of software even with a 13-year head start, a group of people gathered together in 1998 to talk about a new strategy to get the corporate world to listen to hackers. They were impressed by Eric Raymond's Cathedral and the Bazaar's take-up among business leaders.