Back in 1976, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to hobbyists. He asked, "Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put three years into programming, finding all the bugs, documenting his product, and distribute it for free?" Today, Gates has to eat those words because the...
While I was handing out candy on Halloween, a trick-or-treater came to the door dressed as an open-source project. There was code everywhere and volunteer contributors were coming out of his ears. It was a clever costume, but what made it really scary was the giant fork he was carrying. Open-sourc...
Richard Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation, started a revolution over printer drivers. According to the official history, he couldn't get permission or source code to modify a printer driver to suit his needs, so he wrote the General Public License (GPL) and a compiler. Eventually,...
I love life and I love having choices. I guess you can say I am pro-life and pro-choice. Unfortunately, for most people those labels represent the opposing sides of a very divisive issue. The curious thing is that these terms are not really descriptive of the issue at all. In fact, unless you know...
France built the Maginot Line in the 1930s, a supposedly impenetrable state-of-the-art defense system to protect the country from her long time enemy, Germany. It was meant to prevent a German invasion, but the Germans simply went around it, dealing the French a humiliating defeat in the spring of ...
We can learn some lessons from reality TV. For instance, many disputes can be settled without lawyers. If your brother-in-law owes you money or your neighbor's tree drops fruit in your pool, you can simply vote them off the island. Or fire them. Either way, working it out on your own is a cheaper al...
Two orders have been issued in SCO Group's cases against IBM and Novell that could impact how the legal wrangling proceeds. U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball is hearing both cases, which involve contract and copyright infringement claims and counterclaims against IBM, and slander claims against Novel...
Ban
Regulate
Maintain status quo
Undecided
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