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Re: A Question of Ethics (was: Overriding Acrobat User Settings)
Subject:Re: A Question of Ethics (was: Overriding Acrobat User Settings) From:mpriestl -at- ca -dot- ibm -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 16 Aug 2001 15:58:10 -0400
Andrew Plato wrote:
>The open source movement has the same problem that communism has - its a
>nice idea that JUST DOES NOT WORK. Both forget one fundamental law of
>economics: there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Yep. Absolutely. That's why Linux and Perl don't exist, and Apache isn't
the most popular server on the web.
Oops - did facts get in the way of ideology again?
I'm not going to bother explaining how open source works - there's a ton of
papers already on the web. The fact that you say it doesn't work, given
that it clearly does and continues to do so, points to a flaw in your
understanding, not a flaw in open source. If the facts contradict a theory,
discard the theory, not the facts. Sometimes there is a free lunch.
I'll also point out that you're conflating open standards (such as HTML)
with open source (such as various tools). HTML and Word are both industry
standards - the fact that anyone with time on their hands can develop an
HTML authoring tool has nothing to do with open source, and everything to
do with the different ways that W3C and MS handle intellectual property.
Michael Priestley
DITA Specialization Architect
mpriestl -at- ca -dot- ibm -dot- com
Dept 833 IBM Canada t/l: 778-3233 phone: 416-448-3233
Toronto Information Development
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