One of the unforeseen problems of having a single textbook on a subject, provided by the government, surfaces in this story from Korea link here. When the education ministry tried to publish a new economics text for middle and high school, financed jointly with the Federation of Korean Industries, a big business association, the unions protested and the ministry removed its support. The draft clearly was critical of unions. Business, on the other hand, complained "that the current textbook is hostile to businesses, and emphasizes enterprises' social responsibility too much."

Monopoly isn't good for textbooks since trying to find a solution acceptable to all parties is unlikely to succeed or to be dull or both. Trying to write texts by the Wiki formula may fail for the same reason.

Who following the soap opera that is Wikipedia would call it dull? The great thing about open source is the variety - don't like Wikipedia? Start your own fork. Or better, invent your own facts. But what we don't seem to see is anyone wasting time creating imitation wikipedia's from start as we do with textbooks.

I wouldn't call Wikipedia et al "open source." That's almost insulting. It's free (as in free speech) content, not open source.

First, the term "open source" doesn't even apply to text, since you cannot use text without knowing it's source, and second, this is exactly what open source doesn't stand for. "Open source" is not about the freedom to fork and redistribute. That issue is completely ignored. Content that you are free to use, modify, share and fork is called Free Software, Free Culture, etc.

The trick to life is to know when you are winning. In common parlance "free software" has become "open source," as "GNU/Linux" has become "Linux." Technically not correct, and in the latter case doesn't give credit where credit is due. But recognize the basic fact - these terms have become common parlance because of the enormous success of the free software movement. True there are a few odd things calling themselves "open source" that aren't actually free software. But which is better to be wildly successful and lose control of the words, or be crying in the dark?

On the wiki front, John Bennett directs us to a Salon article about the "border war" between North Korea and China

in the context of ancient Northeast Asian history, a border war is being fought, a conflict in which archaeologists are the infantry and ancient inscriptions on stone monuments the ammunition. The "history war" between China and Korea has been raging for at least a decade... Fronts in this war include government-sponsored research institutions, televised soap operas, UNESCO World Heritage Sites and even Wikipedia, where ferocious "edit wars" replicate in the virtual world the nationalist tensions of the embodied world in perfect syncopation.

I'd argue that "open source" means something entirely different. The problem is that the success of free content - freedom - is misattributed to "open source" ideology. Hence, freedom activists have a hard time explaining that they are more than just idealists.

So technically I think that open source simply means that the source is available - regardless of whether or not you are allowed to use it for anything. I believe Microsoft has at various times claimed that some of their code is "open source" because they let other people see the source. I believe there are five freedoms in free software: use, study, copy, modify, redistribute. But I think that in common parlance "open source" means those five freedoms - most people don't regard Microsoft's "shared source" as open source. Which important "open source" projects deny some of those freedoms?

That kind of open source is similar to free software. It is less absolute in allocating those freedoms, however, sometimes allowing restrictions freedom absolutists would find unacceptable. More importantly, "open source" projects often make other decisions that seem harmful from a purely freedom-idealistic viewpoint.

The difference in approach is large enough to call even this kind of open source (a non-intuitive interpretation of the words, in my view) something different than "free" content. Sometimes, calling something "open source" when it is "free" does not do it justice. Sometimes, calling something "free" when it is "open source" is a blatant lie.

Even though in common parlance free software projects are often called open source projects, the two terms have not become synonymous. People have simply lost track of what the terms they use really mean and of what free software really stands for.

Ideals differ, approach differs, it is more than just "control over the words." There is a lot in a name. Free Software and ultimately free culture, the ideology behind it, has not necessarily prevailed when open source prevails - it is too easy to lose track of freedom on this alternate road.

I disagree with your statement that Free Software has won and should stop arguing about proper attribution.

I am revisiting this point (which I feel is important), because I have found an essay that argues it far more eloquently than I could.

http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/hacking/fsvos.html

It is titled '"Free", "Open Source", and Philosophies of Software Ownership'