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What Would Our Forefathers Say About Open
Source
William Nett
 "Open Source or GPL software will doom the economy, and is against the capitalistic foundation of our country"... so says Steve Ballmer and SCO. But is it really? I think Benjamin Franklin would roll over in his grave at Microsoft and SCO's view of Open Source software. Education up until the 1700's used to be for the rich and powerful. You either came from money and went to school, or you were poor and worked the fields. Ben however, came up with the idea of.. and get this, "A free and open public library." He also came up with the idea of free public fire departments, bifocals, the lightning rod, etc... but none the less his reservations were for the benefit of the public. Last time I checked, there was no patent on any of them.
I can't imagine what would happen if my local library suddenly began charging my children to read books, or what if Anti-Open Source proponents deemed that the ability to read books from libraries was robbing the writers of their IP rights by people benefiting from their writings? Should my daughters in the future have to sigh a non-disclosure agreement to take math or
English? Should they pay a royalty fee to Spanish speaking countries for learning
Spanish?
Richard Stallman makes a good point with regard to Open Source software... "Software is like a recipe, and we all make subtle changes to
recipes to adjust to our tastes." But what if recipes were closed source? Restaurants
would be forced to make dishes that complied with such patented requirements and pay appropriate license fees. If I opened a burger shop and used certain ingredients or manufacturing processes on top of existing ingredients or processes, I could be sued.
According to SCO, if I release a recipe and accidentally include certain ingredient information which I own the IP rights to, I can sue you... even if you purchased my recipe from an earlier cookbook which I authorized and or sold to you. It's like telling you that although I told you how to make a hamburger and used a gas grill, but you can't use a gas grill, because that's my idea.
Personally, I think that the ability to learn and build upon what has already been made is what really makes this country great, I believe we call it innovation and development. Otherwise we would all still be living in log cabins and making clothing out of a cotton gin. If Microsoft wins by SCO proxy, we will all have to use
charcoal grills, you will have only choices as outlined by your End User License Agreement, and to use paprika will be subject to a board review and contract amendment.
Please excuse me, I smell something burning...
Will
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