Ludd vs. open source
,----[ Quote ]
| Open source is being blamed for the decline of American programming.
|
| Open source gives programmers in other countries a level playing field.
| Open source takes money out of the system, giving it to businesses and
| consumers in the form of savings.
|
| Guilty as charged.
|
| Open source does reduce software exports. Open source does lower prices.
|
| But blaming open source for these economic changes is a lot like blaming
| the electric loom for the decline of craft jobs 200 years ago. Workers
| then took out their anger on the mills. Fortunately programmers today
| can do little more than shoot flames at the messenger.
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http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=780
Interesting comment:
What everyone is forgetting
,----[ Quote ]
| Every one who claims Open Source is an evil new development forgets
| that 20-30 years ago almost all software was developed more within the
| open source model rather than the closed source model.
|
| The GPL was a reaction to move back towards open development models
| that existed prior to certain companies introducing and pushing hard for
| all software to close its development model.
|
| It was very common to find source code for PC software about 20-30 years
| ago -- It was the norm BTW... Doubt me? Go to a good Library and check
| out an 1980's era copy of Compute!, RUN, or Family Computing and you
| will find printed source code for programs in all of them.
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http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10535-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=25011&messageID=470159
I once read (in Wikipedia, I think) that Gates has indeed decided to close
computing, in what only resembles media content providers heading towards
controlling the customer (DRM et cetera).
I wonder if it could be argued that the closed-source movements proliferated
the job of the programmers, just as Windows (quite inadvertedly) creates a
whole industry around security (and then destroyed it by hogging all the
profits from its shoddy software). Microsoft also kills the programmer's
role by extending a monoply. Essentially, Microsoft strives for computing to
be a money-making monster which extracts all the world's wealth and puts it
in Ballmer's and Gates' bank accounts.
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