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Re: open source article
On Mon, 13 Mar 2000 TonStanco@aol.com wrote:
> QUESTION:
>
> I believe that Open Source is a very important freedom movement, because,
> like Harvard's Professor Lessig says, code is law, but with a non-human
> police force. With closed code, we'll all be prisoners in the very near
> future. So I believe that code MUST be open.
Ah! But how do you define open?
Several plausible answers come to mind:
- The code is available with the software, but the buyer may not change it
- The code is available with the software. The buyer may change it for
her own use, but must not distribute the changes.
- The code is available with the software. The buyer may change it for
her own use, may distribute the changes, but not charge for them
- The code is available with the software. The buyer may distribute
changes, but not the software itself.
Ad nausuem. These definitions could all be called "open source" with
conviction. However, the Open Source (or Free Software) community chose a
particular set of freedoms it deems necessary. For example, anyone must
have the freedom to modify an application, and further distribute it, even
for money. That freedom is very important -- companies like Red Hat or
Va Linux do the community a great service, and must be allowed to exist.
Hence, "like Windows", meaning (I presume) a monopoly on a piece of
software, cannot be called Open Source, or Free Software. Free Software
developers are often paid -- there are several people developing Free
Software for very nice salaries.
> just like writers, recording artists or movie actors
I take objection to that -- with the current business model for books and
records, usually most of the profit goes to the company and the lawyers
rather then to the creative personas. This is as much as a screwed up
business model as the classical closed source business model -- making
money for lawyers rather then the creative members of the community.
--
Moshe Zadka <mzadka@geocities.com>.
http://www.oreilly.com/news/prescod_0300.html
http://www.linux.org.il -- we put the penguin in .com
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