What are the legalities with open-washing? When a vendor claims that something is "open source" and fails to provide the source code under a FOSS license that sounds like fraudulent advertisement to me. Isn't that illegal, doesn't that enable consumers to sue for compensation in most jurisdictions? So isn't "open-washing" illegal?
cheers, Michael
On 5/29/24 11:10, Johannes Näder wrote:
Hi all,
During the last years, openwashing has become a growing issue in the Free Software community, as many companies try to associate themselves with the terms "Open Source" and "Free Software" while distributing proprietary software products.
We at the Free Software Foundation Europe want to learn more about current market practices, and we need your help!
We'd like to ask for your input on the topic of openwashing. You can share your views and experiences by answering one or several of these questions:
- How would you define "openwashing"?
- What examples of openwashing come to your mind (e.g. from your
country, professional network)?
- Have you experienced openwashing in your project, organisation, or
environment? How does it affect you and how do you deal with it?
- Are you aware of cases where companies have won public tenders by
openwashing? What did they do and what happened?
- Do you see openwashing as a major problem for Free Software and the
Free Software community? If so, why?
- Do you know of any resources on openwashing (news articles and
analyses, scientific papers, studies, statistics...)?
- What would you suggest to face openwashing?
- Do you have anything else you would like to share on the topic of
openwashing?
You can contribute by simply replying to this message on the mailing list or directly to me. If you want encrypted communication, find my GPG key here [1].
If you want to share your experience without using your name or email, you can also leave a message using the following form: https://share.fsfe.org/apps/forms/s/Z6xHfa8EiXk77FFreg2R6A6T
Feel free to share this message, any input is welcome!
Best, Johannes
[1] https://keys.fsfe.org/jn@fsfe.org.asc
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