Economist has long been following free software

Posted Aug 29, 2003 6:37 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753)
In reply to: It's a cheap, incompetent smear job by davidw
Parent article: Of monkeys and penguins (Economist)

The Economist has generally written very favorably and intelligently about Linux. They understand that certain parts of the IT scene are becomming comodotized, and that fighting it is useless.

Very true! In fact, they may well be the first in mainstream business media to present the idea of a free software business favourably. I remember an Economist article from about 10 years ago, which criticized the tendency towards stricter intellectual property protection (the illustration was a cartoon helmeted IP stormtrooper), and it had long sidebar explaining the business of Cygnus software. It was later acquired by Red Hat, but at the time Cygnus was the most visible example of a free software support company. The illustration for that sidebar showed a swan slipping throught the fingers of the IP stormtooper...