This is the part of the official OSI history (a newer text than the one linked in TFA) that I think is most relevant to the modern controversies [0]:<p>> The conferees decided it was time to dump the moralizing and
confrontational attitude that had been associated with "free software"
in the past and sell the idea strictly on the same pragmatic, business-case grounds that had motivated Netscape.<p>As is the way of so many things, what started out as an attempt to be pragmatic and to ditch dogma has become a dogma of its own. It's somewhat painful to me to see the "OSI definition" of Open Source held up as a canonical gospel when the organization was explicitly founded to do away with the moralizing of the Free Software movement.<p>If we're going to have a moral movement, let's make it the one that was designed to champion user freedoms, not the one that was created to be friendly to corporations. And on the flip side, if we're going to have a movement that is friendly to corporations, why not let it adapt to changing situations to continue to be friendly?<p>[0] <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20071115150105/https://opensource.org/history/" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20071115150105/https://opensource...</a>