Ted Harding wrote: > > but, in the meanwhile, perhaps we need a revision of Ayn Rand's > > "Virtue of Selfishness" and how it may or may not extend to the > > open-source community. > > Ayn Rand's concept of "selfishness" is of course not the standard > one (gratifying oneself in disregard for others), and can (if I > have it right) well embrace ensuring that the self is well looked > after while extending one's resulting strength, vigour and > survival to the benefit of others. And I think this may be a good > analogy of the way the Open Source community works.
Ayn Rand claimed to base her philosophical system on three ``axioms'': (1) Existence exists. (2) Conciousness is concious. (3) [I can't --- thank God --- remember.] When I was in graduate school, lo these many years ago, I had a friend who was a very right-wing person from the South of the U. S. and who might have been expected to have some sympathy with Ayn Rand's views. This friend had a gift for succinct and pithy aphorisms. He remarked: ``Anyone who can say `Existence exists' with a straight face is either a fool or a charlatan.'' cheers, Rolf Turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.