“For the barefooted evangelists of open-source technology,
the order to break up Microsoft, the “Love Bug” virus and recent
attacks on big e-commerce sites are all grist to the
mill.“
“Many of those faithful to the Unix and Linux cause were out in
force at the AUUG2K conference in Canberra late last week, although
a surprising number wore suits and had business cards at the
ready.”
“But the barefoots and suits both agreed that open-source code
was essential for fixing today’s problems and that there was now a
real opportunity for Linux to become an international standard and
the dominant operating system.”
“How this was to be achieved was where consensus broke down. The
barefoots continued to embrace the evolutionary model, whereby
“multiplication, replication and selection of alternatives” would
create the superior solution. But the suits said enough was enough:
that was the path to chaos and destruction.”