Re: <nettime> The Fading Altruism of Open Source Development

[Florian Cramer <cantsin@zedat.fu-berlin.de>]

Am Mon, 17.Dec.2001 um 02:59:32 -0500 schrieb jaromil:
 
> By reading David Lancashire's article and by following this thread i
> still don't understand if you're voluntarily blurring differences
> between "free software" and "open source" or you are simply ignorant:

Yes, it is indeed disappointed that a term that was (quite consciously)
coined as a depoliticized new economy marketing buzzword for Free Software
has so widely been adopted in "critical" net cultures.

The "Open Source FAQ" of the Open Source Initiave says:

   The Open Source Initiative is a marketing program for free software.
   It's a pitch for "free software" on solid pragmatic grounds rather
   than ideological tub-thumping. 
<http://www.opensource.org/advocacy/faq.html>   
 
> Once cleared such a crucial difference for the discussion i'd like to
> add my point of view about free software: _it is_ altruism, it has a

In fact, I argued along similar lines in my initial response because I had
jaromil - a great hacker, btw. - in my mind, regardless the fact that much
if not all Free Software development is coupled with commercial software
enterprise or side-projects. The real amount of altruism in Free Software
development may be debated, but any programmer who's mostly or even only
in it for the money would be stupid to program anything but proprietary
software (which, no doubt, is more profitable).


Florian

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