Essay RFC delayed.

[Ean R . Schuessler]

On Fri, Aug 27, 1999 at 03:12:37AM -0400, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> That's right.  If we did that, we would confuse and/or alienate
> everybody but the 5% of the population wired just like hackers.  Which
> is exactly what you did for fifteen years.
> 
> When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is *stop digging*.

You know, I think that this is where I must totally disagree with you.
Your contention that corporations have no notion of civic duty is both
a simple minded stereotype and fundamentally untrue. The notion of shared
public infrastructures is neither new nor unappetizing to large
organizations.

Freedom, in the sense that Richard is discussing, is central and
inseparable from the functional success of the "Open Source" phenomena.
The grey thinking that you are encouraging leads directly to problematic
licenses like the SCSL. You might as well stop trying to make simple
issues complex and deal with the matter of freedom head on.

Organizations have been aware of the issues of "freedom" in free
software almost since day one. They just call it "intellectual
property management policy" and Richard's "freedom" is the optimal
policy for Open Source software. I can recall having conversations with
executives in the _accounting_ arm of EDS about Linux as a shared business
infrastructure in the Fall of 1995. The popularity of free software, open
source, or whatever you choose to call it is due to the fact that there
was a gap in the marketplace waiting to be filled. Necessity is the mother
of invention, despite the fact that you would like to stand in her place.

E

-- 
___________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler                   An oderless programmer work-a-like
Novare International Inc.                     Silent and motionless
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