[aclug-L] Re: Fwd: your views

["Wilner, Alden" <awilner@xxxxxxxx>]

I must have missed the beginning of this thread...
I think I found the original article at:
http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=8460
It's pretty heated. But so is Kirk's response.

I think the truth is in the middle. A world in which nobody was _allowed_ to
make money from software would be just as bad as one in which people were
_required_ to charge money for their software. I could make a point about
the evils of total control communism vs the evils of total laissez-faire
capitalism, but suspect it would ignite a flame war.

Dr. Strauss is obiously over the top, belittling all attempts to save money
on software development, but he appears to be doing that just to make the
(obvious) point that There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. If someone
doesn't pay for _something_, the only stuff that will get done will be the
fun stuff. 

The resonable response would seem to be that Open Source will NOT change the
world, will NOT revolutionize our way of buying software, but that it will,
instead, continue to exist as a necessary corrective to the excessive greed
of some software companies. The genius of open-source software is that it
cannot be killed by the monopolistic tactics that were so successfully used
by our friends in Redmond for so many years.

May I wax philosophical? It seems to me that, in the battle for "public
opinion," the view that seems to win is the one that successfully presents
itself as the "reasonable" opinion. The battle over slavery is an example.
In the US, for years, slavery was considered "normal." It was in the Bible,
after all. People who wanted to abolish slavery were seen as lunatics, fools
or revolutionaries. Then along came Abe Lincoln, whose campaign platform was
"don't let slavery spread any further." Suddenly the slave-holders were the
ones who were seen as unreasonable, with their demands that the territory of
Kansas should be forced to accept slavery, whether they wanted it or not.
OK, this is a gross oversimplification. But the point is, we need to be sure
to present the open source movement is presented as the "reasonable" thing
to do. Microsoft has proven over an over that they're willing to bend and
even break anti-monopoly laws in order to push up their market share and
profits to unreasonable levels. Open Source is simply the reasonable
response of reasonable people who see that the markets and the governments
are impotent to rein in these abuses. 

OK, let's see if I've managed to light any flames.


-----Original Message-----
From: Kirk Lancaster [mailto:lancaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 11:14 PM
To: discussion@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: [aclug-L] Fwd: your views


I had to send a response.  The original article was probably a troll=20
(although WSU UCATS is no better) and they should not be fed - sorry.

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: your views
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 23:00:35 -0600
From: Kirk Lancaster <lancaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: howard@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Howard:
I hope you do not mind if I introduce myself.  I am a professor of
mathematics at Wichita State University (http://156.26.12.23).  I am
currently the chair of the short course subcommittee of the American
Mathematical Society (so I contribute service to the discipline) and serv=
ed
as the President of the Faculty Senate at Wichita State last year.  I kne=
w a
(deceased) Princeton math professor, Fred Almgrem, and several of my frie=
nds
received their PhDs under his supervision.

I read your article about open source software in the online version of
Syllabus magazine.  Frankly, I am shocked that a person associated with
Princeton University holds such ignorant and biased views.  When Apache i=
s
the most often used web server and IBM, HP, etc. are migrating many of th=
eir
systems to Linux, your criticism of open source software would seem, at b=
est,
to reflect your ignorance.

Sincerely,
Kirk Lancaster
lancaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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