Or, rather, not what it means, but that vendors should figure out a consistent definition of what it means so as not to confuse buyers. Fair enough.According to Gartner, the current debate among open source vendors is about reconciling an inherent incompatibility. "The incompatibility is not with the commercialization of open source software, but rather between open source and traditional industry business model Or, rather, not what it means, but that vendors should figure out a consistent definition of what it means so as not to confuse buyers. Fair enough.According to Gartner, the current debate among open source vendors is about reconciling an inherent incompatibility. “The incompatibility is not with the commercialization of open source software, but rather between open source and traditional industry business models designed to achieve single-vendor dominance of products or technical standards,” Prentice said. Gartner advised open source software users that the uncertainty around vendors’ claims would make sourcing and architectural decisions for open source software more difficult. To mitigate this problem, users must demand a strict definition of open source linked to the modification and redistribution of code and products, which are significant benefits of the open source modelI don’t have the full report, so I’m not exactly sure if Gartner is suggesting my kind of definition, or something else. But I do agree that whatever the definition, it needs to be consistent. I tend to be a conservative – I read the classics (letting time determine a book’s value), don’t really want the US Congress to change laws every time someone sniffles, and still love Neal Young/Zeppelin/etc. (though I do love The Shins, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, etc.). So, I like the tried-and-true OSI Definition of open source. It seems to have worked very well. I’ve yet to hear compelling arguments for broadening the definition. Open Source