[LUAU] the term "open source" is dead, says Eben Moglen

[Jim Thompson]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/20/ 
eben_moglen_on_microsoft_novell/page2.html

The Novell-Microsoft deal certainly shows Redmond's desire to draw a  
line between the "free"and "open" communities. In an interview on  
Friday, Bill Gates was effusive in his praise for the "purity" of  
Richard Stallman, the original author of the GPL.

Did the term "Open Source" mean anything, any longer?

"They're going to have to co-opt a new vocabulary," thought Moglen,  
"because the old vocabulary just died on them."

"I agree with you. This was the week 'Open Source' ceased to be a  
useful phrase because it denoted everything up to and including  
Microsoft's attempts to destroy free. Language is subject to this  
problem. Since the beginning of time uprising movements have taken  
pleasure in perverting the language of criticism used against them by  
the ancien regime - the 'brave beggars' of the Netherlands, and  
Yankee Doodle, and the Whigs and the Tories - it's all the same terms  
of dis-endearment turned into a weapon. But the game is also played  
by modern propaganda in the other direction - by turning language  
into the property of the guy on top: Fox News "Fair & Balanced (tm)".

"What Microsoft did to 'Open Source' was what Stallman always said  
could be done to it: first you take the politics out, and when the  
veal has been bleached absolutely white, you can cover it with any  
sauce you like. And that's what Microsoft did, and 'Open Source'  
became the sauce on top of Microsoft proprietarianism. And once that  
process has been completed they have to go after the next vocabulary."

And now?

"So now they're going to try the hard work of cracking 'Freedom'.  
Free, well that means stuff you don't pay for..."

Microsoft had always been very astute in its analysis, we suggested.  
While the press focused on the open, or distributed nature of the  
production process, Redmond identified the fact that the GPL was  
viral as the real attack. "That's right. They understood the copyleft  
problem well - and understood the GPL well. But they didn't want to  
talk about the enemy because of the rule in American political  
campaigns that you don't say the name of your opponent in case people  
remember it. They don't do that anymore. They've dropped the mask,"  
he suggested.

"What's happened is that "Open Source" has died as a useful phrase -  
Free Software, the GPL, the FSF - all have become major stakeholders  
in the industry in Microsoft's verbiage."

"Once you're a major stakeholder you don't go back to being a minor  
stakeholder unless you go bankrupt - and we can never go bankrupt  
because we have no business to lose.

"So if we're a major stakeholder now we stay that way until the end  
of the chapter, and that's a problem for Microsoft."

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See also:
http://news.com.com/New+GPL+clause+to+flip+Microsoft-Novell+agreement 
+on+its+head/2100-1016_3-6137486.html
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2168151/novells-opens-microsoft