Open Source Forum Charter

Welcome to the Open Source forum.
This forum is intended for those how wish to share information about, and/or discuss & debate topics related to, Open Source Software.

The term “Open Source “ is often, and understandably, confused with free software. Even the leaders of the open source movements and committed advocates argue over the essence of its meaning, with two distinct camps in the world of Free and Open Source Software. In one corner is the Open Source Initiative and their “Open Source Definition”, while in the other is the Free Software Foundation led by Richard Stallman, the founder of GNU, who extols the importance of “Freedom” with regard to “open source”.

For the purpose of this forum the term “Open Source” is used loosely to describe any software for which the source code is made available and freely distributable.

So long as posters keep on topic and to the few rules outlined here in this charter, all are welcome and encouraged to express their opinions and comments.

The views expressed here are not the views of boards.ie, but rather the personal views views of the individual posters.

From time to time, moderators may move, remove or lock threads, if it is felt a post contravenes these rules, but if you have concerns with the policy or actions of the moderators you should follow the Boards.ie Dispute Resolution process defined here

Basic Forum Rules

1. Please keep posts to topics related to Open Source
2. No advertising.
3. No flaming/trolling.
4. No attacks on other posters.
5. No attacks on other people.
6. No reproduction of personal communication (without prior consent).
7. No reproduction of personal contact methods of company employees (unless already publicly available).
8. All participants are required to declare their interests up front, when participating in discussions directly affecting them or their company.
9. All other boards.ie rules must be adhered to which include not posting messages, or links to resources, that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-orientated, hateful, threatening, or otherwise unlawful.

Asking Questions
If you have a question or questions, we would very much appreciate it if you searched this forum before you asked, because it's very likely anything you have to ask has been asked before. To search the forum, use the 'Search This Forum' box provided on the upper right.

Attacks against the person
Despite this being a free public forum, what is said here reflects directly on Boards.ie, and as such, we would ask that posters remain respectful in their opinions when discussing organizations or their employees. Comments which could be construed as false, libellous or offensive will result in posts being deleted or amended and the poster banned.

Changes and Amendments
Following the spirit of “Open Source”, if you see a “bug” in our charter or wish to enhance it generally please submit a “patch” to one of the forum moderators for review.

(thanks the Ireland Offline forum on whose charter this was based)