Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Continuing Dave's Open Source discussion

Author:eric@sourcegear.com
Posted:9/16/2000; 8:21:46 AM
Topic:Continuing Dave's Open Source discussion
Msg #:21388
Prev/Next:21387 / 21389

Dave, thanks for your comments responding to my article. A few quick responses:

1. We agree more than we disagree.

2. You're absolutely right, the concepts of Open Source are not new, but the people who coined the term, and the people who identify themselves as the "Open Source community", those people have a very specific definition of what the term means. When you try to redefine the term, you don't help the discussion. If they want to promote a strict, well-specified definition for the term "Open Source", why not humor them? We'd rather talk about concepts than terms.

3. It's the same thing as you with OPML. You don't want somebody changing the meaning of the name OPML. If somebody wants to do something similar but different, fine, but call it something else, right?

4. It's the same thing with the word "freedom". That's why I try to specifically qualify my use of the word as being "freedom as defined by Richard Stallman". His definition is deliberately exclusive. His definition means that all proprietary software is immoral. That doesn't interest me. But there is a concept which I think is powerful as a tool for software development. It's about sharing. It's about experimenting with new ways of thinking about intellectual property protection and new ways of driving software revenue. But it has nothing to do with Richard's concept of the word freedom, so I usually just try to explain my points with different words.

5. It's all about companies because 95% of programmers get paid by companies to do a job, and then they go home to a family or a dog or a DVD player or their friends or whatever. Dave, you have the luxury of blurring your hobby and your profession, more than most people. But when a typical programmer in a company selects Linux for a customer solution because of their orientation with "freedom", while Win2k may have been the more appropriate choice for the context, they are confusing their hobby and their profession. That is not excellent. Stealing pencils from your employer would be far more ethical.

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