Criticisms of COSS (Score 1)

According to Article 6 of the OSD:

The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor.

This would probably prevent the proposed COSS system from being Open Source(TM) compliant; similarly, it does not appear to be free software under the DFSG.

I believe that Johnson is misinterpreting the "many eyeball" effect. In my opinion, that phenomenon is only a side effect of the Free Software culture; the most important thing is that anyone may modify or improve the code however he/she chooses, without restrictions. Attempting to artificially restrict that system, for whatever purpose, would undermine Free Software's benefits of peer review on which COSS attempts to capitalize.

For example, if a large company were forced to pay thousands of dollars for a COSS program, it is likely that the company would choose a propietary product instead, thus robbing the community of any improvements that may have otherwise been supplied.

As a practical problem, who would enforce the proposed rules of COSS? In the end, probably only the most honest users would pay their fees for using a COSS program, while others wouldn't carry their fair share of the financial load. Arguably, that exactly the system in place today with Free Software/Open Source.