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Free as in "puppy"

  • Článek

Speaking of religions (see my last blog entry): there is another new religion today (at least in parts of the IT world), and it's called "free software" (or "open source software", which practically means the same thing, if we leave out any nitpicking about definitions). John Carroll wrote a nice commentary "A response to Richard Stallman" for ZDNet which discusses some philosophical and economic aspects of this new faith that Stallman et al. are trying to spread. Worth reading.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2004
    It is not "nitpicking". Words have meanings. To pretend that they don't and we can use words to mean things that they don't mean and freely replace them with others at our whim simply for purposes of arguing a point without bothering to know enough about the subject to argue authoritively is a shame and a waste of a potentially good dialog.
    There is open source software that is not free. There is (much more) free software that is not open source. Interchanging the phrases causes confusion for all parties involved.
    Imagine someone railing against .Net because it was case sensitive. Or because it wasn't case sensitive. I don't think it is "nitpicking" to correct someone and tell them "you don't like C#'s case sensitivity, don't say '.Net', say 'C#'."
  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2004
    ... run-on sentences, free to a good home...
  • Anonymous
    January 12, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    January 12, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    January 13, 2004
    Shannon:
    Of course you have a point here. I should have been more cautious with my equality statement since it only works in one direction (OSS practically means free). Stallman wants to make it work in both directions. That's a problem if this turns into religion.

    Thanks for insisting on clear concepts.
  • Anonymous
    May 19, 2004
    I live in Longview Tx. and I wanted to get a new puppy. My little puppy was just stollen from us. If you could please get in touch with me my name is Jennifer and my phone # is
    903-759-0209.

    Thank You