Why Microsoft should reveal SQL Server code

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Uphill battle John C.

Indeed, programmers are quite fun at parties. The liveliest cocktail parties I've ever attended were with programmers, analysts, musicians and lawyers: work hard, party hard. Arguing facts and philosophy is fun and part of our lives! Join the conga line! Kiss an intern from accounting. Books are closed... we won our big case... we just released Version One... Didn't you get the memo? It's Easter!

Comedy aside, there's a serious problem here and yes, you're correct: you've missed an important semantic distinction. I don't have to play to make my point John. I don't have to juggle terms or redefine words - facts are on my side. You deny the OSI imprimateur to define Open Source. Let me ask a different way then: would you deny Microsoft their privelege to define what Shared Source means as well?

Grab a slice of Microsoft's own PressPass pie, John C. There, among the other press releases is the official word from Microsoft, given by their own Senior VP Craig Mundie to the New York University Stern School of Business: "As a result of Microsoft?s statement of position today, many people will attempt to say that Shared Source is Microsoft?s failed attempt at being an Open Source Company. This could not be a more incorrect statement. ==Shared Source is not Open Source.=="

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/05-03sharedsource.asp

Mr. Mundie and therefore Microsoft cite in that speech many differences between Shared and Open Source: including ones I mentioned and attributed to OSI. I never said Microsoft equated the two, but rather said they "should not" as a warning. They heed my (and others) warning they =should not= equate the two. They know that OSI owns those business marks through registration. They know OSI has the authority by law to define what Open Source Software is and what the words Open Source mean and to what licenses the Open Source mark is applied. They even, as evidenced by the speech, respect OSI's definition.

My argument for non-equivalence is, therefore stronger when Microsoft does not make the equation. Not only is OSI denying your statement, so is Microsoft! The two progenitors of the terms are leaving you unsupported. Your statement that Share and Open Sources are equivalent is consequently weakened. The two terms are differentiated by their creators and they want it that way. Is Craig Mundie a bloviating blowhard for telling you as I have told you?

Stepped on a landmine there, eh, old son? You should be more careful what you claim. After all these years, you know I set traps for the unwary. You have naught but your feelings on your side: I've the facts presented and more if I care to dig.

That said: I like your particle physics metaphor and it is apt though opposite to observable reality. Allow me to say why? Words are in fact flung into each other at high velocities to gain definition certain. You read an example here today: Microsoft has a definition of Shared Source that says it isn't Open Source. OSI has a definition of Open Source that says Shared Source isn't it. I am flinging both definitions against your misapprehended feeling that the two can be equated, so that you'll adopt a much more sensible definition: one which is more in keeping with the ones the progenitors, both Microsoft and the OSI, have chosen. You fling back that you're a literary licensee and you'll make the words mean what you want them to mean. In this social supercollider we do indeed flesh out what words mean by combatting them definitively. You have admitted seeing the collisions in your many travels and you see them here today.

Spelling differences do not words make though. As I like the British spelling of colour, flavour and dreamt; I use them frequently. Spelling differences change the syntax of a statement, not the semantics, and are wholly acceptable to me. I rarely correct people's spelling mistakes unless they alter the semantics of the sentence. I don't play with semantics John. I argue for the correct and provable usage of terms so that semantic mistakes do not occur. You do play with semantics when you seek to drop meanings from definitions and fly in the face of convention and make forgiveable mistakes.

When you make a semantic mistake John, I correct you, as does the subset of the world who knows the difference between Open Source and Shared Source. Microsoft corrects you through Craig Mundie. The Open Source movement corrects you through OSI. If you wish to excuse yourself on the basis of a literary license, feel at liberty to do so, but please don't complain, and yes: emotionally bloviate about your nausea. It's easy to avoid the queasies. Use the terms as they're acceptably defined by their creators and mark owners. Don't equate the non-equivalent simply because you believe yourself right and hang it: it doesn't matter what anyonelse believes!

I know of someonelse who takes that approach. He unsettles your gut and frankly, sometimes mine. You know of whom I speak...

Please don't, John, whom I much respect, do with synonyms what Richard Stallman has alway done with antonyms. He wishes Free to be an omnipotent opposite to Secret, Proprietary, and a half-dozen other words. He doesn't care what anyonelse, including any number of dictionaries and social elements think - he's right and dangit; he'll do as he pleases because sacrificing semantics on the altar of argumentative necessity is morally acceptable in his book.

When he executes such blithe disregard on the subject of software; I accept his privelege to define what the movement he founded and the descriptor for the software he created means. When he uses the word Free incorrectly and applies it to other than software, I remind him "Free is not the opposite of Secret, Dr Stallman, no matter how much you might wish it to be. It just ain't so."

Whether you accept the definition of OSI or not is immaterial, John, but if you do; you must also reject the claims of Microsoft that Open Source and Shared Source are different. If you do so, then you're not only flying in the face of one definition, but of three: OSI's and Microsoft, both of whom have far more power to both socially and legally define what those terms mean than you or I do and you'll also be flying in the face of usage of the growing number of adherents to both movements. That's an enormous social pressure to overcome.

Good luck. I give you and Dr. Stallman about equal chances to affect a change in the definitions.

Me, I'll stick by my original assertion since it doesn't lead down the path of denial: Shared Source is deficient in several areas that make its definition impossible to reconcile with Open Source. I'll add for the comfort of others that Open Source is deficient in several areas that would make it Shared Source and that both are deficient in areas that would make them Stallman-esque Free Software.

So, John, do you now reject Microsoft's definitions as well? Do you not see that the two license types are separate because Microsoft and OSI have determined them to be separate and non-equivalent? Will you continue to stand on your assertion that they are the same, despite the denial of the progenitors of both terms? Will you insist that all people who correct you are playing with semantics, while not looking to yourself to realize that when you redefine words as you want, but not as is acceptable to both the progenitors, mark owners, and the movements themselves it is you who are playing with semantics?

Posted by: John Le'Brecage   Posted on: 03/01/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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