Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. Making more things free and open only benefits a small group of technologists who are clever enough to know how to use the results. The general mass of the population still want finely crafted mass entertainment and other products of a high quality and gloss. Making everything free and open destroys the funding model that makes this happen, which includes copyright and other intellectual property rights. There's a trade off between making everything open and quality and reach. You could argue that news for example should adopt a completely free and open model. But who is going to make the investment to ensure that some stories are still told? Investigative journalism is expensive and often dangerous. Money needs to be spent to do it. While in my heart I'm much taken by the idea of making everything open, I smell a whiff of elitism about some of these arguments (i.e. "I want everything free because that's convenient for me and I don't care about anybody else")
________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Dave Crossland Sent: Tue 11/27/2007 11:21 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage On 27/11/2007, Richard Lockwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On this list "the noise is the signal" and you are invited to use filters. > > Noise. Note "noise". Not "Shouting". I THINK WE ARE HAVING A JOLLY OLD TIME DEBATING THE MERITS OF SOFTWARE FREEDOM, AND THAT THERE WILL NEVER BE AN END TO IT IS PART OF THE FUN. NO ONE HAS BEEN SHOUTING SO FAR, AND EVERYTHING HAS BEEN VERY CIVIL :-) -- Regards, Dave (This email is meant to be amusing, and doesn't reflect the views of any employers) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
