> woodelf > > part of the problem is deciding > when something is "one work" and when it can legitimately be > considered multiple works that share one physical medium (pair of > covers, CD, whatever).
Exactly, and no definition or citation of examples will ever be all-encompassing or cover every situation. That's why it doesn't really matter whether open material appears in the same work as closed material. > i don't like the idea of someone profiting > (and i'm as concerned about mind-share profit as monetary) from my > work, which i have specifically chosen to make open, without > themselves making their work open--they're gaining the benefits of > open content (reuse of others' content) without the ideal (releasing > your own content). So the issue is not really with your work, but rather with the authors who would benefit from your work but decide not to share as you did. While I can understand your point of view, I find it inconsistent. The open source movement is not a club where your act of sharing is your membership card. Open source is rooted in the free exchange of ideas. Either you believe that ideas expressed in writing can/should be shared freely, or you believe that by writing an idea down you have collapsed its potential into tangible property. I don't mean to say that all ideas are created equal, and I don't find it inconsistent when a person chooses to share one idea and hold dear a different one. I find it inconsistent when a person chooses to share his idea only in a quid-pro-quo manner. Open source means sharing with everyone, not just with people who think like you do. Either you believe in the ideal of the free exchange of ideas or your don't. You can't have it both ways. > [though i'm confused as to why you think Red Hat wouldn't > exist--when i got a version (years ago), there was nothing > proprietary on the CD. has this changed?] I don't mean the Red Hat distribution per se, but rather Red Hat Inc., the publicly traded company that polished the current distribution to a such a high-gloss shine that corporate executives could see their bottom line reflected in it. Do you really think Oracle would have touched Linux if it was still an unsupported hobby OS like it was when the first Red Hat distribution came out? No one can really say, but I find it highly unlikely. -Brad _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
