How do you spell open source ?

Do we use "open-source" or "open source" or "opensource" ?

Cheers,

Marc

Marc Paré schrieb:

Do we use "open-source" or "open source" or "opensource" ?

Hi,

<http://opensource.org/> might be a reliable reference, they write "open source"

CU

Rainer Bielefeld

Thanks, but I am just trying to coordinate our marketing spelling with the docs team spelling.

Cheers,

Marc

A popular general-purpose American style guide--The Chicago Manual of Style--would likely prefer using the hyphenated form when used as an adjective (such as in "general-purpose" in this sentence). Otherwise, not.

Gary

It is a local style agreement of course. "Open source" almost always works. In some English language practice, hyphenation is sometimes used when the term is placed as a single adjective, as in "formerly open-source software." Confusion is unlikely in the "open source" case, and the OSI makes no use of it.

For documentation, it would be valuable to create a style guide for what is desired for consistency.

- Dennis

Some writers, such as myself, use that hyphenation systematically. That might (or might not be) an aid to translators. Another case I find for hyphenation is in making gerunds as in "The bean counters were busily bean-counting. Executives prefer estimation to actually counting beans."

We have a style guide (Chapter 5 of the Contributors' Guide) , and
"open source" (two words, no hyphen) is in it. (See the section titled
"Commonly used words".)

Yes, I'm aware that the entire contributors' guide needs to be updated
and some bits of it expanded. That's next on my To Do list, after I
finish some other work.

--Jean

Hi Jean,

We have a style guide (Chapter 5 of the Contributors' Guide) , and
"open source" (two words, no hyphen) is in it. (See the section titled
"Commonly used words".)

Yes, I'm aware that the entire contributors' guide needs to be updated
and some bits of it expanded. That's next on my To Do list, after I
finish some other work.

--Jean

Thanks. We'll follow the docs team's lead on this and update later if you change your usage.

Cheers,

Marc

Hi :slight_smile:
I think we aim for using camel-case as in OpenSource to be consistent with usage in other projects don't we? 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

NO NO NO! Wrong! (See my earlier note.)

Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
Grrr, oh no!  Ah well.  Best to be consistent internally i guess :frowning:
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

What other projects use OpenSource and in what context? I'm not
familiar with that usage, and it seems very strange to me.
--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
That is really weird.  I've been hunting around and can't find it anywhere.  At least, not consistently.  It does appear in a few places but it's not even the most common variant by quite a long way.  I was so sure i was seeing it everywhere but obviously now
Apols and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

It is a local style agreement of course. "Open source" almost always works

I just did a little digging, and noticed that OSI uses various
formulations of the name on their website.

For proper nouns like The Open Source Initiative or the Open Source
Definition, on their front page[1] they use caps[1]. On the same page,
they seem to refer to the general idea of 'open source' in lowercase.

In some English language practice, hyphenation is sometimes
used when the term is placed as a single adjective, as in
"formerly open-source software." Confusion is unlikely in the
"open source" case, and the OSI makes no use of it.

The OSD[2] does use the hyphenated term "open-source software" twice,
although that might just be Bruce Perens' particular spelling of the
term :slight_smile:

The OSI FAQ[3] does use various spellings (open source, Open Source
software, open source software, etc..), however it is somewhat
consistent: It seems that the general idea of open source-y stuff is
in lowercase, but anything classified as an "Open Source license" or
even as being "Open Source" is in caps, perhaps conferring some form
of acknowledgement or recognition by OSI that a particular piece of
software or particular license meets the OSD's requirements. The page
is not entirely self-consistent on this score, perhaps a result of
multiple authors making updates over multiple years, but there does
seem to be at least some thought given to capitalization.

We have a style guide (Chapter 5 of the Contributors' Guide) , and
"open source" (two words, no hyphen) is in it. (See the section titled
"Commonly used words".)

Excellent. I agree with Marc Paré: Stick with what this spec says
until we decide to update it.

Yes, I'm aware that the entire contributors' guide needs to be updated
and some bits of it expanded. That's next on my To Do list, after I
finish some other work.

If we do take a crack at updating the Style Guide soon, it might
behoove us to consider how we wish to refer to the software and to our
community. Do we want to use "Open Source" or "Free Software" or
"Libre Software," or perhaps some combination thereof?

Cheers,
--R

[1] http://opensource.org/
[2] http://opensource.org/osd
[3] http://opensource.org/faq