Re: <nettime> The Fading Altruism of Open Source Development

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.org>]

>> By reading David Lancashire's article and by following this thread i
>> still don't understand if you're voluntarily blurring differences
>> between "free software" and "open source" or you are simply ignorant:
>
>Yes, it is indeed disappointed that a term that was (quite consciously)
>coined as a depoliticized new economy marketing buzzword for Free Software
>has so widely been adopted in "critical" net cultures.

I quite deliberately (con)fuse the two, though I'm sure I'm also ignorant.
I think separating now FSF/GNU and Open Source/Linux is like trying to
separate the ingredients of a meal after it has been cooked. It's pretty
pointless. It's clear that Linux and other Open Source projects heavily
built on FSF work, however, I think it's also clear that without Linux
(and other projects) the great FSF would have remained a rather closed,
albeit pure, club. 

One of the most interesting aspects in this entire movement is the degree
to which it has been able to absorb very different, even contradictory
ideas. So far, I think the politics are still in the code, not in the
label, and I cannot see much difference between Open Source/Linux GPL code
and FSP GPL code. But then again, I'm not a hacker.

> but any programmer who's mostly or even only
>in it for the money would be stupid to program anything but proprietary
>software (which, no doubt, is more profitable).

Which is not necessarily true. I guess John Gilmore is still quite wealthy
(good for the EFF).  However, this is totally besides the point. Whether
someone makes money or not is not really the question, the question is the
quality of the output and its impact on others. The rest, from my point of
view, is a life-style question.

Felix



--------------------++-----
Les faits sont faits.
http://felix.openflows.org


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