“It’s not often that folks in the business press see tangible,
positive consequences to what they write. I’m fortunate that this
is what appears to have happened after my column a few weeks ago
about the abandonment of the application to trademark the term
“open source.”
“The noise and overreaction down at Slashdot was to be expected.
Bruce Perens, who actually initiated the trademark effort, went on
every forum around to call for re-filing the trademark application
and to brand me malicious.”
“The positive aspect of this was a shift in strategy by the
Open Source Initiative (OSI) to ignore the trademark of the term
open source and pursue a plan to certify software that meets its
definition of open source.”
“Eric Raymond, who heads the OSI, says he’s disappointed that
the trademarking fell through but believes the new initiative will
work better.”