[sclug] Eric Raymond and Marxist software development

[Tom Carbert-Allen]

Alex Butcher wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Mar 2008, Tom Carbert-Allen wrote:
>
>> originator? does someone claim title to the concept of open source 
>> software? If so, I don't accept this. Are you talking about this Eric 
>> Raymond bloke that someone else mentioned?
>
> Yup. Eric and Bruce Perens founded the Open Source Initiative in 1998.
> Before then, it was all Free Software, Freeware, Public Domain and
> Shareware. Eric wanted a term that didn't have some of the 
> connotations of
> 'Free Software' which might deter business from getting involved. The 
> term
> 'open source' did exist before then, but in an entirely different 
> context -
> the use of publicly available information (e.g. newspapers) for 
> Intelligence
> purposes.
Dickon Hood wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 18:12:59 +0000, Tom Carbert-Allen wrote:
> : originator? does someone claim title to the concept of open source 
> : software? If so, I don't accept this. Are you talking about this Eric 
> : Raymond bloke that someone else mentioned?
>
> Eric Raymond invented the term, and trademarked it.  Accept it or not,
> it's what happened.
Looks like I need to revise my terminology again then. I was quiete 
shocked when my suggestion that Open Source was more like marxism than 
capitalism resulted in people reffering to some Raymond guy not being 
happy! I didn't realise he had decided to take full ownership of a term 
I use to describe a concept.

Problem with these debates for me is a lack of formal political 
education and far too much time learning the actual code, not the 
polatics of those who wrote it. I often find myself looking silly 
because my assumption of peoples understanding of my terminology is 
often incorrect. This is a big problem with anachism though, everyone 
has there own idea of what stuff means so communication can either be 
mis-understood or bloated with repeated definition for clarity.

>
> Best Regards,
> Alex.