For all those who have been asking, the Halloween Documents are
available on my website.
They were removed from the Open Source Initiative website, against my advice, a couple of weeks back.
Having studied the history of other advocacy organizations and seen the traps they fall into, I specifically designed OSI not to be a founder-centered cult of personality; I think OSI’s decision to distance itself from the documents in order to look more “professional” was a mistake, but the open-source community is healthier because they had the power to make that mistake.
And for those of you who questioned the timing: the decision was made in February 2005, months before
Microsoft started making kissy-face noises in OSI’s direction. (Yeah, you can tell how much I think
that’s going to mean in the longer run.)
I didn’t notice them missing until I lurked around your site last night (after reading your response to Doc Searl’s excellent article); thank you for keeping these important historical footnotes online.
(After all, one should not be over-reliant on the Wayback Machine, now should one?)
Oh and BTW sorry to be nitpicking OOT-ly but like, your individual archives don’t have a ‘home’ link or button… (please forgive this Bloglines addict :p)
It’s a good thing that they *could* make that decision. That just underscores that open source is *not* Eric Raymond’s big idea, but rather a genuine movement that’s bigger than one guy.
Thanks for putting these back up after we removed them. It’s important that OSI be open to all comers who wish to respect open source principles, but it’s also important that people understand that Microsoft have bad history and bad habits they need to overcome.