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Spirit of communitySpirit of communityPosted Jan 13, 2006 20:21 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)In reply to: There Is No Open Source Community (O'ReillyNet) by daney Parent article: There Is No Open Source Community (O'ReillyNet)
I think they are not that much different than non-software communities in business (i.e. a bunch of executives going golfing).I would say they are similar in some respects, and very different in others. The main difference is one of competition versus cooperation: executives tend to be selfish, and only help when they can get something back; while in free software there is a spirit of doing something for others because we are all better off this way, or just lending a hand wherever is needed. This may seem idealistic, seen from outside; but it just works. Even with big corporations -- those that really dig it are not afraid of contributing code and even releasing one product after another as free software. Roger Waters said it better: "Together we stand, divided we fall".
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Spirit of community Posted Jan 14, 2006 10:58 UTC (Sat) by arkm (subscriber, #415) [Link]
The main difference is one of competition versus cooperation: executives tend to be selfishOne of the selfish reasons can be not going to prison. Antitrust laws can be harsh. Business competitors discussing their product/marketing/sales plans can be a big NO NO. The executives of say, Redhat and Mandriva, could probably sit down together and discuss all kinds of things with out antitrust problems. I would think using the GPL makes running afoul with antitrust laws very difficult to achieve. But, I would still want to have some lawyers around.
Spirit of community Posted Jan 19, 2006 5:03 UTC (Thu) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] Hey, I know which side my bread's buttered!What I've *received* from the Free Software community is worth a million times what I've actually *contributed*. I've spent a bare minimum, and the reward has been huge. The same goes for most of the businesses that have employed me over the years. BTW I'm sure Abraham Lincoln said "Together we stand, divided we fall" before Roger Waters did. And for all I know he wasn't the first.
"together we stand, divided we fall" -- not Lincoln after all? Posted Jan 19, 2006 5:34 UTC (Thu) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] ...Or perhaps not. Wikiquote doesn't have it, but it does have a speechreferring to the United States as "a house divided against itself", after the Gospels (eg. Mark 3:25: "And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand"). Certainly "together we stand, divided we fall" was a trade union rally chant and a motto for African American community groups in the 1950s, somewhat earlier than _The Wall_. This just in from the infamous Google Book Search: The earliest (mis-?)attribution to Lincoln I can find is from 1955, in "Price-support Program: United States Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry". Somehow I *doubt* that a US Senate committee report is the source of its popularisation among the trade union movement :-)
"*United* we stand, divided we fall" Posted Jan 19, 2006 5:59 UTC (Thu) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] The closest I can get to an 'origin' is either Aesop or "The LibertySong" (1768), written by John Dickinson (1732-1808), neither of which can be considered to have coined the exact phrase (whether "United" or "Together"). http://www.kdla.ky.gov/resources/kyseal.htm Ah well.
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