Russ Nelson quotes from Slashdot article

Russ Nelson quotes from Slashdot article

Posted Feb 2, 2005 6:11 UTC (Wed) by stevenj (guest, #421)
In reply to: Interview: OSI's new president by b7j0c
Parent article: Interview: OSI's new president

I didn't know anything about Russ Nelson before today, so I'm just looking through a few of his posts on Slashdot to get it from the horse's mouth. Here are a few of the things he wrote (trying to sample all of the substantive comments, omitting jokes...no particular order):

• here: You've just put your finger on why the patent system is so evil (or, more technically, its costs exceed its benefits): because ideas are reinvented all the time. Rewards for inventing go, not to the inventor who has filed a patent, but to the inventor who gets his invention into the marketplace. A patent helps but slightly in that process even in the best hopes of the theory.
• here: My point remains. Generally Americans are happy to let others live and let live. The American government, on the other hand, is a lot less tolerant. Lemme see, Trail of Tears: yup, US Federal Government policy of "Indian removal."
• here: It [open source]has become more than a merely descriptive phrase, though. It has become a well known term; a trademark if even I may say. If you talk about Open Source Software, people know that you are referring to a specific class of software, all of which have licenses approved by OSI. There is cause and effect here between our promotion of the term, and people's use of it. Very early on, I heard the term, felt it to be more accurate than "Free Software" (after all, it's not about price, it's about openness), and adopted it for my own software, long before I was elected to the board of OSI.
• here: It's not that freedom has ever been a non issue or a side issue. How could you have open source software without freedom? It's that we haven't tried to sell the idea of freedom in the way that RMS does. In a world where the citizens of most developed nations have half their incomes wrested from them by the state (slaves only paid about a quarter, effectively), how widely supported do you think the idea of "freedom" is? Look at the recent report about American high school students having almost no respect for the first amendment? In a world where there still exist ANY people who think socialism is a good thing (hello slashdot posters!), it's too risky to tie the acceptance of open source to the acceptance of freedom. The first, you see, is the reality of freedom; the second is the naming of it. I'd rather have a pound of gold and not know what to call it, than to have a piece of paper with the words "a pound of gold" written on them. The thing is not the name and never has been (outside certain fantasy books about magic, of course).
• here: I'm just frustrated with RMS. I've tried to explain differently to him for, well, for years now. He continues to contend that open source is just a development methodology whereas free software has a philosophical basis. I was just reading in Reason Magazine today that Ayn Rand didn't like libertarians because they didn't have an epistemology explaining WHY they were libertarians. Who cares why you prefer freedom? The fact of the matter is that open source is inseparable from free software. Give up the one and you lose the other. So what is RMS worried about? I don't understand.
• here: I think you've been drinking too much of the kook-aid that RMS has been handing out.
• here: Sun's patent-encumbered license? I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're talking about. I don't think you understand what you're talking about either. Maybe you should explain it to both of us. Remember that I'm not very smart, so please use small words.

  If the CDDL is a weapon against free software, why isn't the Mozilla license a weapon against free software? The two of them differ only slightly.

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