"Lex Spoon" <lex at cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
> cg at cdegroot.com (Cees de Groot) wrote:
> > >From the two examples above, it is clear that the Squeak License doesn't
> > pass the Open Source Institute's Open Source Definition, not the Free
> > Software Foundation's definition of Free Software, so it seems to be
> > inappropriate at the moment to label Squeak as open source.
> 
> Why do these guys get to define "open source"?  In the common parlance,
> you don't need as many restrictions as they require.  If you can distribute
> the program widely, if you have all the source code, and if you can modify the source
> code and redistribute it, then the program is open source.  It's not
> necessarily OSI-approved or FSF-approved, but this says more about those
> institutions than about Squeak.

To some extent I agree. But have you read all Cees and my posts on this?
There are several issues here. One is that the "bigger" community of
open/free software really would like to keep the two existing
"definitions" (OSIs "OpenSource" and FSFs "free software") unmuddled. It
is in our own best interest to keep these two definitions distinct and
clear, IMHO.

So if we write "Squeak is open source.", then even if we technically are
not "lying" (because we didn't use capital letters) some people will
think that we mean the OSI OpenSource variant. And I repeat once more -
the SqueakL license has been presented on license-discuss (OSIs
mailinglist) and there where 3-4 knowledgeable people responding that it
is CLEARLY not "OSI OpenSource". I think Andrew Greenberg has also
written that somewhere/time.

Since we can write it differently thus avoiding any misconceptions (I
have offered one simple variant, but there are surely tons more) I can't
really see why we shouldn't. What are the reasons to NOT change the
current wording? Being as correct as possible is the best in my book.
 
> -Lex

regards, Göran