From: "Eric S. Raymond" < esr@thyrsus.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Subject: The Open Source Initiative needs your help
Date: Thu,  3 Dec 1998 19:48:39 GMT
Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs
Approved: linux-announce@news.ornl.gov (Mikko Rauhala)
Message-ID: < pycola.912714520.9126@revelation.bak.helsinki.fi>
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	KrOWl4bjrhQ=
	=n4+q
Xref: sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk comp.os.linux.announce:11641


The Open Source Initiative needs your help.

The Open Source certification mark is a valuable tool for turning on
everybody interest in software on to our way of doing things.  But for
it to keep working, we have to make sure it doesn't get legally diluted.
(This is a legal requirement; if we don't enforce the mark, we lose it.)

We're a handful of unpaid volunteers.  There are a lot of potential 
diluters out there.  We need you to help us keep an eye on them.

If you see the term `Open Source' (or even the lower-case
`open-source') being used to describe software with distribution
conditions that don't fit the Open Source Definition, please
inform us at 

	mark-misuse@opensource.org

All the misuses we've seen so far are accidental.  We gently set those
people straight.  In the process, we try to educate them and
bring them fully into the open-source community.  If there is
ever deliberate or malicious abuse, we will be ready to do what
is necessary on behalf of the community.

Thanks in advance.
- -- 
		< a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr">Eric S. Raymond

The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can
bribe the people with their own money.
	-- Alexis de Tocqueville



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