“I had intended to make it clear that the first assertion, the
one about Free Software/Open Source lacking originality, was a
passing thought, not something that I believed. That I didn’t make
that clear was clear when I checked my mail Friday.”
“Readers quickly wrote to remind me of the innovations due to
Free Software/Open Source: the Internet, email, news groups, the
World Wide Web, Perl, TeX. The lack of originality of Free
Software/Open Source is a myth, and I shouldn’t be perpetuating it.
Fair enough.”
“But I think the rest of my argument still works. Free
Software/Open Source is all about building on what others have
done, and the admonition to steal (in the artistic sense) rather
than borrow (also in the artistic sense) is still good, and still
needs saying, it seems to me.“