The Open Source Initiative (OSI) Might Get 'Forked' Soon
Someone who read our series has already taken a leading role
We shall soon resume the series about the OSI. It'll be very long.
It seems like some people have read the previous chapter and decided to do something about the Open Source Initiative's (OSI) series of unforced errors. How do we know this? Well, days later Bradley Kuhn (SFC) wrote two angry blog posts about the OSI and days ago he decided to speak to this right-wing fanatic from Microsoft about "Open Source Initiative Election Shenanigans". To quote the outline:
The "Hacker-in-Residence" of the Software Freedom Conservancy (and past Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation) talks about Open Source Initiative election rigging.
We'll be covering the "Open Source Initiative election rigging" (correct words used there) next month.
So what will happen to the OSI and the Open Source Definition, which is possibly not even controlled by the OSI and was never controlled by the OSI - more so after its co-founder Bruce Perens had left in protest? Perens is the one who wrote this definition or wrote the DFSG and thus - inter alia - the Open Source Definition.
"Here’s the response from Bruce is the Debian free software guidelines a free doc," one reader told us. "Because of the we hope other projects take on this as a model." (We suggested this weeks ago).
"I do plan to modify," she said, "but just the name so we can have a new definition to work from. But the Debian project isn’t exactly A great player these days, so Let’s see how this goes!!!!"
She wrote to Debian. "There was some talk about a flaw," she said, but "I need to dive down that rabbit hole cause that seems very interesting. No consensus, yet on the gladly granting me permissions!"
The message:
Hi. My name is Marcia Wilbur. I have a few projects I contribute to, Including a remaster tool, Technical writing tools, and a few fun things having to do with open computer vision.Bruce Perens in the Debian Free Software Guidelines announce states:
We hope that other software projects,
including other Linux distributions, will use this document as a model.
We will gladly grant permission for any such use.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/1997/msg00017.html
I would like to use the Debian Free Software Guidelines document as a model for my projects as well as promote DFSG or a derivative as a model for other projects.
At this point in time, the only thing I would modify is the name.
Thank you,
Marcia Wilbur
Linux respin
Requests to use DFSG as a model were granted by Perens, who said: "I hope you're doing well. If you're not going to modify it, I think you could just cite the document at its current location. If you are, just for formality sake you should ask the Debian folks. I've not been on that project for some years - just too many things to do."
So it looks like it's actually underway already, with the implicit blessing of the originator of the DFSG and the Open Source Definition (he co-founded the OSI and no longer trusts the OSI).
Expect the OSI to issue many more face-saving work soups. There's not much the OSI can do to salvage its reputation at this point. █