But yes, on the popularity bend, you're correct -- the OSI basically was a giant PR campaign, started by Netscape to publicize their going-out-of-business sale as a good thing, actually. Most importantly, they specifically wanted to separate themselves from the FSF project's four freedoms, which they viewed as antithetical to business -- or rather, antithetical to any business who wanted to buy the charred remains of Netscape, like AOL. So they started with Debian's DFSG, and whittled it down until they had something they could sell.

In my opinion, people argue about terminology too much rather than the freedoms and the society we want to build, but that's just the internet, sometimes.