Some people will point to the demise of a few companies as the downfall of open source, but those people just don't get the point. Open source is rooted in academia, and companies that don't understand what that means are going to fail. The residual code base licensed under an open source type license from those companies is what is important.
I suspect we'll see a lot of other companies go by the wayside. But I'm very appreciative of the resources those companies have put into open source projects. Some big IPO money ultimately supported the ongoing development of Sourceforge and Redhat for example, and I'm very appreciative of that. The only thing that will take the code base out of the domain now is if all the developers who use it or add to it die. Nice to see Savannah come to life, too! Webmaster / Web Integration Programmer Affiliated Health Services Mount Vernon, WA USA http://www.affiliatedhealth.org phone: 360.856.7129 > -----Original Message----- > From: Horst Herb [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 7:24 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: sourceforge drifting ... > > > On Thursday 22 November 2001 02:57, John L. Forman wrote: > > The following article has comments on this issue > > > > Is open source fading away? > > Ah well, a few "open source" companies more or less, who cares ;-). > > If you look closer, you will find that most of the companies > who went down > never were promoting free software. They were using "open > source" as a > distinguishing property in a competitive market, but never shared the > ideal as promoted by the FSF. Half hearted attempts are > usually quickly > identified and subsequently dumped by those committed to free > software > (like our project dumped Interbase after watching their "IP > spectacle" for > a while) > > Different worlds, different breed of people and ideas. I wish > them well, > they are still better than the secretive "closed source" > guys, but still, > they are not "the real thing" either. Sad that Sourceforge > went down that > track too, but once again: who cares. Now we have Savannah, another > evolutionary step forward towards more freedom. > > However, the whole process might emphasize how much > protection the GPL > gives to the honest developer who wants to have his work > published, used > and improve. > > Horst >
