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

Re: Open Source -- Open Minded?

Author:Joshua Allen
Posted:7/20/2000; 11:36:33 PM
Topic:Open Source -- a world onto itself
Msg #:18854 (In response to 18797)
Prev/Next:18853 / 18855

Open Source folks, when confronted with questions that appear threatening, usually resort to defending their position and arguing their case. This is not just an OSS thing; it's human nature. But if a person is constantly repeating the same arguments, wouldn't that reinforce in their mind that their position was the correct one? George Soros points out that any movement claiming to have the one true answer is usually destined for the same fate as the facists and the Nazis. (Funny he labels his ideal of countering this the "Open Society" which is actually quite opposite to "Open Source" as it exists today).

Anyway, the most convincing demonstration I could see of Open Source people being open minded would be a discussion of potential merits of the ideals normally seen as competetive rather than another exposition about why Gnu is smarter than anyone else.

To this end, I would be interested in OSS opinions on the following questions:

* Should software programmers be allowed to get paid for writing software? Or should hardware and services be the only ways to make money?

* How about the idea of a company that writes software intended to be sold to the largest possible market. Completely theoretical, but suppose you wanted to find software that a ton of people wanted, provide the software for a fee that people would be willing to pay. Is that a viable model? Should it be a viable model?

* Economists tell us that companies exist to supply customers with something that there exists a demand for. Do you think they are right? How much of that classic definition describes a company like Microsoft?

* Six years ago, open source projects I worked with were aimed at solving fresh, unsolved problems. It seems today that OSS is often involved in making knockoff replicas of software to give away for free. To what degree do you think that OSS should focus on providing free replacements for existing solutions, and to what degree focusing on new challenges?

* Should hardware designs, chip design, etc. be controlled by the "community at large"? Should all chip designs be provided under GPL?

* What are some of big challenges left in software that are yet unsolved? What things do you see that still need to be built, regardless of the infrastructure upon which they are built. Think out a few generations -- can you think of some things that conceivably be done with software, just not on todays platforms?(meaning the platforms would have to evolve before we could even think about doing these things).

[Disclaimer: sorry this is really long. any reponses appreciated and voraciously consumed.]

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