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Those Who Can...Those Who Can...Posted Oct 22, 2004 14:59 UTC (Fri) by Prototerm (guest, #20227)Parent article: Why open source is unsustainable (Financial Times)
In my 50-some years living in the real world, I've found there are few old saws truer then "those who can, do; those who cannot, teach". In my experience, the vast majority of the professors in colleges and universities are so insulated from reality that they haven't the faintest idea what living on the Planet Earth is like. The author of this article is a case in point.
When the real world appears to disagree with their academic pronouncements, these professors will patiently point out that the student has come to an erroneous conclusion, based on poor observation or a logical fallacy, or both. Their own conclusions, of course, are never in dispute.
To be fair, there are, of course, exceptions. Although few, these people are themselves exceptional, and almost make up for the clueless masses that control the academic ivory towers. Unfortunately, the author is one of the clueless.
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Those Who Can... Posted Oct 22, 2004 15:29 UTC (Fri) by gowen (guest, #23914) [Link] In my experience, the vast majority of the professors in colleges and universities are so insulated from reality ... the clueless masses that control the academic ivory towersReally? Your experience covers the vast majority of professors? In a broad cross section of departments, universities and countries? Sure. Whatever. Somehow, I think not. Anyway... There are plenty of techie people willing to spread FUD about things they don't agree with. Look at various Sun techie blogs or MS press releases of the last few weeks if you don't believe me. Would you appreciate it if someone generalised from these self-promoting outliers to make crass and ill-informed comments about your profession. Idiotic generalisations don't help anybody, and just make you look some unappealing combination of stupid or bitter.
Those Who Can... Posted Oct 22, 2004 23:07 UTC (Fri) by jtc (subscriber, #6246) [Link] I think what Prototerm said in his first paragraph is true, if two phrases are changed:
"the vast majority of <people> are so insulated from reality that they haven't the faintest idea what living on the Planet Earth is <truly> like."
Warning: Off-topic political injection: As an example, look at how many people support president Bush.
Those Who Can... Posted Oct 22, 2004 15:53 UTC (Fri) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link] I think it's more a problem with columnists. I suspect some of them will write anything in order to catch some attention or make a few extra bucks, not to deliver a particular point of view. It is unfortunately much easier to dump your uninformed or intentionally controversial opinion somewhere than it is to respond to it, so you can easily get away with it. And of course a bunch of hairy zealots are a much better target than big corporations you might want to stay friends with.For a professor of law, who has apparently read the GPL, this should be a rather embarrassing column. It's like a professor of physics struggling with Newton's Laws. Pretty pathetic. (Maybe that "Distinguished Service professor" is a title that can be bought?)
Those Who Can... Posted Oct 23, 2004 11:53 UTC (Sat) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] Interestingly enough, as an academic who spent many years previously working as an engineer in industry, one of the main incentives to study, improve and publish source code is academic. The added value we contribute to society in return for our modest but secure salaries is a combination of what we teach our students and how we develop knowledge. What is the point of developing knowledge unless you publish it ? I have noticed very many significant contributions to Free Software made as a consequence of academic research.
Once a program develops to the point where it becomes commercially interesting, then it is the interests of those who base their commerce on particular programs to continue to develop and maintain these, and share the cost of doing so with other developer-users. However, academic interest is likely to be significant in taking a program to the point where it has commercial usefulness. It is no accident that the early Linux kernel was an entirely academic project.
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