in this case, wikipedia is right. Open Source, which is a trademark of the Open Source Initiative http://opensource.org/, was created to be inclusive of not only Free Software (that covered by the GPL), but other software that is not quite Free. For example, public domain software is not Free but it is free and may even meet the Open Source Definition http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php The word Open may have been used earlier, but not in any cohesive way. http://opensource.org/docs/history.php gives a history that is accurate to my knowledge and my experience as far as software goes. Blame Chris Peterson and Eric Raymond and Tom O'Reilly. Like you I was surprised to hear, and read on Wikipedia, about the 1992 usage in the intelligence community. But there it is OSINT all over the place. OSINT sounds a lot like "Competitive Intelligence" to me. On Sun, 10 Sep 2006, Barry Wellman wrote: +Probably all of us on these lists are familiar with "open source" as a +term applied to software. + +I was surprised recently at a conference (in Washington DC, of course) to +learn that the CIA manages an "open source" section -- using the term in a +much different way to refer to keeping an eye on publicly-available +information (newspapers, TV, etc.). Wikipedia suggests that the +intelligence world even has prior use -- dating back at least to a 1992 +conference in Washington. By contrast, "The "open source" label came out +of a strategy session[3] held at Palo Alto in reaction to Netscape's +January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator." +Followed by Tim O'Reilly's "Open Source Summit" in April 1998. +http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source#History + +A friend thinks that the term "open source" may predate 1992, and was +originally used in the business world. Similar to the CIA, it referred to +making use of publicly available business intelligence. + +Fascinating how the same term could mean such different things in the +computer developer and the intelligence world. + + Barry + _____________________________________________________________________ + + Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director + wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman + + Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto + 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 + + You're invited to visit & contribute to the new version of + "Updating Cybertimes: It's Time to Bring Our Culture into Cyberspace" + http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php + _____________________________________________________________________ + + + +_______________________________________________ +The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list +is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org +Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org + +Join the Association of Internet Researchers: +http://www.aoir.org/ + ========================================================================== Paul Jones "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation." Alasdair Gray http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/blog/ pjones@ibiblio.org voice: (919) 962-7600 fax: (919) 962-8071 ===========================================================================