2010/9/10 Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) <[email protected]>: > Excellent analysis. However, I'd find the argument more convincing if > the author didn't bring political ideology into the discussion. For > instance, there's no point in bashing MNCs in this context, and it may > alienate some people who would otherwise have helped clarify the divide > between public software and FOSS. Similarly, discussion about the > benefits or otherwise of BSD don't belong in an article analysing public > software vs FOSS -- BSD is a FOSS licence after all.
I used BSD as an example of a more permissive license in the context of explaining the misunderstanding of FOSS licenses. > > The biggest hurdle I see is the discussion of capitalism towards the > end. Please note that Open Source Software has been created as a > concept to help promote open software in a capitalist environment. The > reasons for using open source software are meant to appeal to > businesses, not to idealists. So the author could always distinguish > between Free Software and Open Source software, and bring capitalism > into the picture in that context; in the context of FOSS, however, > capitalism is as relevant or irrelevant as any other political ideology. Politics and political ideology does matter in FOSS and especially when it comes to implementation. Typically businessmen tend to look for maximisation of profits at minimum cost and look for corruptible bureaucrats. Technically incompetent businesses will see FOSS as a hindrance and will want to get through via kickbacks, though the technically competent may see security in offering kickbacks. The former category will be more reliant on corrupt methods. FOSS forces people to ensure quality of services and so incompetent businesses (the majority) do not like it. Capitalism does not support sane principles of division of labour and as FOSS implementations require a level of transparency, conflicts cannot be avoided. That is an important reason for my claim. Best A. Mani Best A. Mani -- A. Mani ASL, CLC, AMS, CMS http://www.logicamani.co.cc _______________________________________________ network mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in
