massonpj

As mentioned elsewhere, the original debates around "open source", as both a term and movement, centered around "free" vs. "open", or the value, benefits, ethics, etc. of copyleft/reciprocal licenses vs. permissive licensing. Interestingly, while there is no trademark protection (i.e. ownership) of the term "free software", the founders of the OSI, recognized and honored that label's definition as described by RMS, GNU, and FSF--as well as their authority as stewards--and created another label, "open source software". There are many, many contemporaneous documents that reflect this debate.

Today, I believe those issues have been resolved (i.e. clearly understood), with both the free software and open source communities agreeing that both labels and communities support software freedom: to study, use, modify, and redistribute.

I personally feel, and in my experience as General Manager at the OSI, there is an increase of people/organizations raising issues over the open source label, it's definition, and the OSI's role as steward. My sense is, as open source software and communities that create it--both non-profit foundations and businesses--realize the benefits of collaborative co-creation, and see greater success, more people/organizations are enticed. You can see this in other "open" initiatives like "Open Content", "Open Source Hardware", "Open Data", "Open Educational Resources", etc. Clearly there is value in communities of practice collaborating around shared interests, and indeed these communities can operate in a variety of ways to generate artifacts defined by those communities, e.g. what is "open content"?

As a corollary, success has raised the profile of open source projects and developers, so there are simply more discussions happening now across more communities. When free and open source software was less popular (with the debate focused on, how can this be good if it is developed by non-professionals, is unsecured, poor quality, etc.), there simply may have been fewer discussions.

Now that "open source has won", many may be debating what about open source makes it a winner, and thus, what is open source.

"Definitions don't belong to committees"

"[...]irony in the OSI talking about open source like they own it[...]"

The definition (and it's authority/legitimacy) belongs to (i.e. owned by) a community of contributors, very much like an open source project, not a committee (i.e. the OSI Board of Directors). Currently there are 508 members in the OSI's "License Discuss", and 266 members in the "License Review" communities. These are open to anyone to join, and participate in. These groups define "open source" as expressed trough licensing.

The Open Source Definition, as well as OSI Approved Open Source Licenses have been modified through the consensus of these communities (e.g. the addition of a 10th criterion to the OSD, and work around open source license proliferation).

(Full disclosure, I am currently the General Manager at the OSI).

The term "open source" can not be trademarked (just like Kilogram can not); the mark is too "descriptive." The OSI does have trademarks for "OSI Approved Open Source License", as well of course for its own branding, e.g. the "OSI Keyhole Logo" and the name "Open Source Initiative."