[ Thanks to Jason
Greenwood for this link. ]
“In a San Francisco hotel conference room buzzing with
lingo-slinging technology executives and public relations
representatives, Bruce Perens is an unassuming standout. The
advocate and developer of free software isn’t wearing a gray suit
like the rest of them, and he’s not overly optimistic about the
announcement being made here–that media software maker
RealNetworks is making some of its vital source code freely
available to developers.“That’s because Perens sees through the business of the software
industry. He is more engaged in its social aspects. In addition to
making many technical contributions to open source and free
software projects such as the Linux operating system, Perens also
is the primary author of ‘The Open Source Definition,’ a syllabus
of sorts that outlines the philosophy of the development model,
which says software code should be free to view and modify.“Among the throngs of software executives at that San Francisco
event on Monday, Perens explained in an interview that he is
planning to embark on another cause–an assault on the
controversial digital copyright legislation known as the 1998
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA…”