On Tue, 23 May 2000, Ian McKellar wrote:
> This was one of the worst written essays I've ever seen.
Why? Because you disgree with it? Or is it badly written English?
The former does not make for a bad essay. It makes for a
disagreeable essay.
I agree with Meyer on
(*) quality - free/open does *not* imply quality, and there are
tonnes of poorly-written freeware out there [actually, methinks
the "Art of Computer Programming" got lost somewhere in the
mid 80's, when universities worldwide were rationalised into
market-driven machines and flakey tech colleges started churning
out programmers with 6 months training ;-]
(*) "cargo cult mentality", i.e. single proponent extremist views
being promulgated by the likes of Stallman and the advocates
of slashdot.org can lead to lack of clarity and downright
wrong calls of judgement
> The author just
> doesn't get where Stallman is comming from. Meyer says:
> "The GNU and FSF view is that it is OK to sell anything except software."
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html clearly explains that charging
> a price for software is okay. Its /freedom/ that its all about - a point
> that Meyer completely misses with his definition of free software:
[SNIP]
> * Can be used for commercial as well as not-for-profit development, even
> by people who have not paid for it. (There may be some restrictions on
> commercial uses, for example the requirement that additions to the free
> software be free too.)
"commercial as well as not-for-profit development" is that freedom
Meyer loses his own argument when he pontificates
at the beginning about not judging the quality of a movement
by the quality of its progenators and supporters, then later goes
on a character assassination rampage comdemning Eric Raymond for
supporting freer gun legislation.
And my own personal view: Meyer is an O-O nazi and has quite an
agenda of his own to push, esp. in the area of killing off C++
before it spreads too far ;-)
--
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services
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