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+The Open Source Initiate (OSI), overseer of open source licenses, has decided to go on the offensive against companies and services who abuse the term "open source" to promote products and software that do not use an OSI approved license.
+
+Michael Tiemann, President of the OSI, [writes in a post on the ISO site][1] that the changing landscape of software development combined with deceptive practices by vendors necessitate a more stringent policy.
+
+>The topic of "what is really open source and what is not?" has been simmering for quite some time. And until last year the question was trivial to answer, and the answer provided a trivial fix. But things have changed, and it's time to regain our turf.
+
+As Tiemann outlines the problems and abuses of the term "open source," he points the finger primarily at vendors who claim to offer open source software, but use licenses that don't have ISO approval. 
+
+According to Tiemann, the last year and half has seen vendors move from correcting ignorance or misunderstandings to outright hostile responses to the ISO.
+
+The biggest challenge many vendors lob at the ISO is, predictably, "our definitions of open source are every bit as valid as yours."
+
+For the record, Tiemann has no problem with non-open-source software. "If people want to try something that's not open source, great," he writes, but he goes on to add that they should "call it something else, as Microsoft has done with Shared Source."
+
+As the overseer of open source licenses, the ISO has stringent definition of the rights an open source license must guarantee as well as the control it can exercise. Here's the basic summary, but [read through the full definitions on the ISO site][2] for a more thorough explanation of each item.
+
+
+>1.	Free Redistribution
+2.	The program must include source code, and must allow distribution
+in source code as well as compiled form. 
+3.	The license must allow modifications and derived works
+4.	Integrity of The Author's Source Code
+5.	No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
+6.	No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
+7.	The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom
+the program is redistributed without the need for execution of
+an additional license by those parties.
+8.	License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
+9.	License Must Not Restrict Other Software
+10.	License Must Be Technology-Neutral
+
+[For a complete list of licenses that meet these terms, [see the ISO list][3]]
+
+In the past the ISO has dealt with companies who use the term open source to describe proprietary software by correcting them with letters and other "polite" means, but that may be changing. 
+
+The ISO is not planning to take vendor abuses lying down. 
+
+Tiemann thinks that he and the ISO have "been remiss in thinking that gentle but firm explanations would cause [vendors] to change their behavior."
+
+He goes on to suggest that some of the misinformation about open source comes from the press. "I have also not chased down and attempted to correct every reporter who propagates these misstatements." 
+
+Tiemann believes that if the ISO and the community in general doesn't start taking the initiative, open source customers, who find themselves betrayed by unscrupulous vendors, will come to distrust the community as a whole. "If we don't respond... we are betraying the community."
+
+[1]: http://www.opensource.org/node/163 "Will The Real Open Source CRM Please Stand Up?"
+[2]: http://opensource.org/docs/osd "The Open Source Definition"
+[3]: http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical "Licenses by Name"
+\ No newline at end of file