Re: Tocqueville on open source development

["Eric M. Bennett" <ericb@pobox.com>]

Case Roole wrote:

>A bit farfetched perhaps, but I am regularly pained by writers who insist
>on comparing open source development with communism.
>
>While being disappointed in ESR on the Halloween writings Jerry Pournelle
>dropped a hint to which I have found the most appropriate reference.
>It seems to me that open source development is the result of a long-time
>all-American tradition:

It becomes "communist" only when somebody (Stallman) suggests replacing all
(or perhaps even the majority of) commercial software with
government-written software funded by a software tax.

I have yet to see anyone on this list take that extreme position; although
some people on am-info have said they support increasing the amount of
government funding that goes to software projects, they don't (AFAIK) take
Stallman's extreme view that commercial developers must be destroyed.

Your excerpt from de Tocqueville says nothing about government intervention
in the U.S., and I think it's the idea of government mandates for OSS that
set off the "communist alarms".  I don't think anyone here has said that
the FSF and related OSS associations should be disbanded.



--
Eric Bennett (http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/)
Cornell University, Field of Biochemistry
377 Olin Chemistry Lab

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