Internet Week: The Morality of Open Source

[ Thanks to Jason Greenwood for this link. ]

As I was doing my billing recently, I remarked to my boss that I always feel bad billing for services I enjoy doing. 'Sure,' he replied, 'and wouldn't it be great if everyone chipped in to help pay your mortgage and feed your kids? Oh, wait. That's called communism.' He's right, and it's a sobering context in which to consider open source.

"If we follow my boss's line of thinking, open source, or 'free software,' might be considered communism. But to business and IT managers, open source isn't about code we don't have to pay for. In this case, free means freedom, as in the freedom to choose and use software as we wish, with no proprietary barriers..."

Complete Story

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• InfoWorld: D-word Dissection(Jan 10, 2003)
• PBS.org/I, Cringely: Bill to Linus: You Owe Me.(Nov 21, 2001)
• LinuxLookup.com: Killing the 'Linux Future' Fallacy(Dec 07, 2000)
• TechRepublic: The duality of Microsoft's position on Linux(Sep 23, 2000)