[Clint Williams]

Let the flame wars begin...

[js1138]

Windows now seems to be open source, even if not voluntarily. I suspect that Microsoft will open much of its code voluntarily when the market makes this move necessary.

[Mr. K]

The Open-Source maniacs are a weird group. They believe in open source, so YOU have to believe in it to.

I keep telling them, if they want to write software and give it away free, then go ahead- no one is arguing with them.

But I can't afford to work for free - I have afamily to support.

[nuconvert]

Tasting "very like Coke" doesn't quite make it.

[Eala]

ping

[Arkinsaw]

It doesn't matter how much people scream about something, it matters whether it is adopted or not.

The only way to stop open source is to bring in the trial lawyers and pay tons of protection money to the legal mafiosa. Because if they don't beat it down with paid for politicians and lawyers then the people ARE going to adopt what it produces.

For those companies opposed to it, its very much like trying to compete with someone who will work for nothing. In fact, maybe Steve Ballmer knows what its like to have his job outsourced to people who will do it for nothing. Sort of like Microsoft call-center jobs to India. LOL

[Eala]

But they [Open Access] overlap with open source practice in two ways. The first is that they provide a public good that can be exploited by all. The second is the idea that those contributing to the public good may want to do so for non-financial rewards.

Did you receive a non-financial reward for your contribution to the public good of FR? *\;-)

[Strider]

non-financial rewards

I can't take that to the bank. I'll just keep charging money.

[CharacterCounts]

Stallman developed the idea of distributing free software with its source code and a licence that allowed you to modify the source code as long as the modifications were kept in the public domain.

I don't know much about programming, but I do know a little about competition. I just can't see a company paying big bucks to Big Blue to customize a GPU application and then putting the resulting code in the public domain for its competitors to access for free.

Am I missing something? I see the potentional for a lot of cheating (taking - but not giving back). How will this cheating affect open source development.

The other thing I am having trouble with is the concept of one person or group developing software for free and another company such as Big Blue maintaining and customizing it for profit. It sounds like Big Blue is trying to strip the gravy off of other peoples efforts. This doesn't sound like a concept with a long term future to me.

[ANRCHTN]

//initiate procedure
function openSource(status){
  (status)? makeArray(content) : break;
}

//contructor
MovieClip.prototype.makeArray=function(content){
  this.createEmptyMovieClip("Person"+i,i);
//waker_________________________**
  this["Person"+i].changeAlpha=function(targetalpha,speed){
  this._alpha+= (targetalpha-this.alpha>0) ? Math.ceil((targetalpha-this.alpha)/speed) : Math.floor((targetalpha-this.alpha)/speed);
  if(this._alpha == targetalpha){
    clearInterval(this.alphaLoop)
  }
}

//________________________________fader
MovieClip.prototype.fade = function (targetalpha, speed){
  clearInterval(this.alphaLoop);
  this.alpha = setInterval(this,"changeAlpha", 30, targetalpha, speed)
}

//_______________________________ INT.SCL
openSource(true);

[Lancey Howard]

Excellent, very well-written article - - great post.
I was surprised that Mozilla was not mentioned. It is a browser which is available for free, and if I am not mistaken it is one of these "open source" projects. At least it looks that way from the Mozilla homepage.

Also, it seems that a whole lot of music recording artists are now producing "open source" music whether they like it or not. Not that the individual songs can be altered / improved (although how far away can that be? - - and don't people already produce "dance mixes", etc.?), but people now construct their own "albums" (CD mixes) of the songs they want. It's not that much different than photo shop where you can mix and match photos any way you want.

[YoungKentuckyConservative]

My humble opinion is that Microsoft has been more of the "cancer" of innovation than open source has been the cancer of Microsoft.

The community of "nerds" was a lot more innovative back in the day before Microsoft started knocking everybody off the block by either buying them out (a practice I completely encourage...it's fair and capiatlist) or buy bullying and outright copying their innovations. Then there's the time honored tradition of doctoring the OS so certain programs fail and crash. We all know Microsoft has been guilty of that on more than one occassion.

May freedom ring! Go Linux!

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[jpsb]

I have been playing around with trivia and wheel of fortune games for my web site. Comming up with trivia wuestions is a real pain in the butt. I wrote 300 and now I'm brain dead. I am going to go open source. Publish the game code and the questions database and make it possible for anyone to modify either. Might even do the same with my forum software too.

[Old Professer]

Where's my Coke?

[adam_az]

Free Republic is like Open Source Lexis Nexis for the Masses.