In article <99040518001201.00277@mishna> you wrote:
> Where are the open source references and terms of licensing?
Clearly, you haven't been paying attention. Heed the previous advice to find
and read a copy of Hackers by Levy before you spout off on this again. It's
a fun read, and you'll learn some history you apparently don't know.
Prior to Bill Gates, nobody really thought about "open source" or licensing.
We wrote code, we passed the source around to everyone we knew for comments
and help on improvements. I've got boxes full of issues of Ipso Facto, the
newsletter for 1802 users, every issue of which had pages and pages of source
code contributed by ACE members. When I could afford some CP/M hardware, the
only piece of my system I didn't have source code to was the kernel of the
CP/M operating system itself, which was provided in binary-only form. I fixed
that later by moving to ZCPR, which was an "open source" clone written partly
to fix the problem of source being unavailable, and partly to add new features.
Until Bill started selling his 8k BASIC (which I refused to buy... I played
with Pittman's Tiny BASIC instead, but preferred assembly in that era), it
never occurred to any of us that software was anything other than a community
resource we all contributed to and took from as we needed. Bill demonstrated
that there was a different model that could also "work"... but many of us
didn't buy it then, don't buy it now, and have made major personal investments
of time and money to ensure that there are Free Software alternatives for as
many proprietary programs as possible.
I know. I was there. I'm still here. I remember.
The point has already been made, but I'll make it again. The Free Software
movement of today is a "Return of the Jedi" phase in the evolution of software.
It's *not* a new idea... there are just new words wrapping the idea.
73 - Bdale, N3EUA
