Well, at least you got one. You had to fill out this form for them to deem you
worthy enough, based on your job description, corporate affiliation, and yearly
income. Either I didn't rate high enough on the scale, or mine just hasn't come
yet. I was looking forward to it, too. I like the extra recipients, too. It
sounds like the editorial staff are corporate toys, but some of the writers are
cool, so that's weird. I guess that's what happens when you get bought out by
[be|a]ndover.
Seth Cohn wrote:
> Well, I got pissed... :) I was looking forward to this new magazine, and
> I was sorely disappointed.
>
> For those who want to read the editorials/columns, in question, I'll have
> it at the next meeting...
>
> Seth
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 18:49:45 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Seth Cohn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
> [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Open Magazine just doesn't get it... how sad...
>
> I received issue 1.2 of Open magazine, the new Andover.net print magazine,
> in the mail today. And from the editorial on page 3, to the back pages'
> publisher's column, I have to wonder what the heck happened, and when did
> 'Open Source' stop being 'free as in freedom' and only 'open as in
> viewable'?
>
> On page 3, Jack Fegreus, editorial director of Open, slurs anyone who
> thinks that currency should have something real behind it, when he insults
> the 'gold loonies'. Keeping in mind that Alan Greenspan himself once was
> a gold advocate and Ayn Rand-ist, the ridiculous inflation of IT companies
> with massive IPOs is just as senseless as dollars without something solid
> behind them. Linux stocks starting plummenting, not because of anything
> the companies did, but because the stock value was far more than the
> companies were really worth. A 'gold standard' for information would mean
> that the value of a company was based on something concrete, support or
> eyeballs or sales, for instance, not just the latest hype. Bad economic
> theory is not why I subscribed to a 'Open Source' magazine. Lots of the
> original 'free software' believers are also libertarian, at least by
> ideals, Jack.
>
> On page 72, Michael Lamattina, publisher of Open, wonders if millions of
> Napster users 'have a clue', and shames Gnutella for 'releasing the source
> code'. Regardless of your position on the Napster debate, the 'freedom'
> position is clear: technology to 'lock and charge' is bad. Yet here is
> the publisher of a supposedly 'Open Source focused' magazine trying to
> proclaim that it's a lost battle, it's 'theft' and that Gnutella's open
> source is 'a disgusting technological equivalent of wartime's human
> shield'.
>
> Michael, you don't get it: Freedom is freedom. If you try to lock up
> music, or code, or movies, or anything else, at some point, you remove my
> right to do with the data as I wish. Freedom is about just that: to do as
> I wish with what I receive. IP laws are the opposite: to prevent you from
> doing with as you wish. This technological jump is as radical as the
> Gutenberg press was, and it's time for people to wait up and smell the
> roses. This battle won't be fought in the courts, because the courts are
> a generation behind. Try to ban something on the net and watch the 'whack
> a mole' game start up. Mirrors pop up, new ways to spread code appear,
> and nothing truly dies on the net, it's only a tape backup away. The
> battle was lost with the first 'copy a: b:', and no court in the land will
> ever close the door again.
>
> 'Free as in beer' isn't enough. Free as in 'watch/listen only the way we
> say you can' isn't free, MPAA - RIAA - Real - WhoeverElse. The hacks will
> continue, and they will get harder and harder to stop. Decentralization
> is the way it's going to spread, and when the laws required to stop it
> grow ever more arcane and obtuse and annoying and invasive, the general
> public/mass consciousness will finally stop listening to the little man
> behind the curtain who looks like a cross between Jack Valenti and Bill
> Gates, and stop obeying laws that make little sense in the new Digital
> Age.
>
> sincerely,
> Seth Cohn
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
