Re: open-source vs. open source

["Michael West" <mbwest -at- bigpond -dot- com>]

> > One of the purposes of hyphenating compounds is to avoid ambiguity, as
> > in "open door policy" or "fast sailing ship". Maybe it's just me, but
> > I don't see potential ambiguity in the phrases above involving "open
> > source".
> >
> 
> It's not just you :-> Our Editorial Forum discussed
> this and decided that "open source" did not need to
> be hyphenated when used as a modifier because its
> typical usage was not ambiguous.

The idea that there is a committee somewhere that decides what I, or anyone
else, will or won't find ambiguous is hilarious. That's not editing, that's
clairvoyance.

-- 
Mike West

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