[ Thanks to someone247356 for this link.
]
“I’ve been wanting to write this article for several months.
Since I began writing this column at the beginning of the
year–examining the strategic issues in technology through a lens
that’s founded in a Christian worldview–the open source movement
has frequently been central to strategic issues in technology
industries. Early this year, I received a note from a reader
attacking open source, and specifically Linux, from a proclaimed
Christian perspective. This reader equated the open source movement
to socialism and claimed that Microsoft products were essential to
the spread of the gospel. This obviously challenged me to more
deeply consider these claims.“In general, my sense has been that open source is ‘good.’ What
I’ve had to question is whether that sense is driven by my
selfishness–i.e. if I can get something without paying for it,
that’s good for me. Or is there a deeper sense of the ‘rightness’
of the open source movement. In trying to justify my opinion, I
naturally considered the early New Testament church. As described
in Acts 4:32 ‘And the congregation of those who believe were of one
heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging
to him was his own, but all things were common property to them.’
Does this mean that the early church was socialistic?“Before I get too far, let me back up and explain how the open
source movement generally works. I say ‘generally’ because there
isn’t a governing body to dictate how so-called ‘open source’
projects must operate, but there is a general commonality to
them…”