Thursday, July 08, 2004
Presidential campaigns take sides on software!
Linux News: Open Source: Politicians Take Sides on Software in US Campaign by New York Times reporter Steve Lohr, who covered the Microsoft anti-trust trial:
Thanks to Benjamin Kowarsch for the pointer!
The Web sites of John Kerry and of the Democratic National Committee run mainly on the technology of the computing counterculture: open-source software that is distributed free, and improved and debugged by far-flung networks of programmers. In the other corner, the Web sites of President George W. Bush and the Republican National Committee run on software supplied by the corporate embodiment of big business: Microsoft.*snip*
The two sides are defined largely by their approach to intellectual property. Fans of open-source computing regard their software as a model for the future of business, saying that its underlying principle of collaboration will eventually be used in the pharmaceuticals, entertainment and other industries whose products are tightly protected by patents or copyrights.
But the politics surrounding open-source software do not always fit neatly into party categories. "You'll find gun nuts along with total lefties," Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, said in an e-mail message.*snip*
Thanks to Benjamin Kowarsch for the pointer!
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