Hall On Worldwide Open Source Movement

adamsmith_uk writes "There's an article up on ZDNet summarizing an interesting speech from Jon "Maddog" Hall about non-US open-source, as well as protecting open-source from 'looters' - well worth a read: 'The open-source development community is an international treasure and should be protected as such, said veteran Linux advocate Jon "Maddog" Hall, in a talk in Birmingham, UK, that emphasized the role of open-source software outside the United States.'"

Comments

Publicd domain??? NOT!

[Alsee]

Because open-source software is in the public domain, support was provided by local engineers, creating Brazilian jobs, Hall said.

WTF?!? It's NOT public domain.

Hall seems to know what he's talking about, so I'm going to guess that the article author - Matthew Broersma - did a botch-job in paraphrasing him. Note that this comment isn't actually in quotes, unlike four other comments attributed to Hall.

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Iraq looting story has been well-disproven

[Daniel Quinlan]

Before I comment on the museum looting story, I should note that I agree that government spending should favor open source (although I think public domain would be fine as well) over closed source. To a large extent it does, but if it's my tax dollars, then I should get more back for it, not less. Spending money on commercial software when good free alternatives exist is not a good use of my taxes, so I'm glad to see maddog talking about this.

Anyway, I realize the speech was about something else and this quote was probably selected because of its topical nature (or the reporter's leanings), but the story has been well disproven as a falsehood seized upon by the media in their frenzy to discredit the US and the UK. I'm surprised to see the "thousands and thousands" version of the story, intended to swing public opinion against the Iraq war, still being referenced.

"These treasures were created over tens of thousands of years, and all of a sudden, because of the lack of foresight of a few greedy people, a lot of them were removed from the world," he said. "The world has to decide whether or not to send in troops to guard this free and open-source software, to protect it for the world's use."

Even The Guardian has backed off of the earlier story.

If you want a right-wing source instead of a left-wing source, try WorldNetDaily which was published more than a month before the Guardian one (it helps to use multiple sources).

And even if the original version of the story had been true, I could really care less about some museum pieces compared to the lives of the US and UK military, the Iraqi people, the Kurds, etc.

Re:Since he compares the SCO suit ...

[dubStylee]

I wasn't commenting on the orignal claims of 170,000, I was commenting on the /.er's claim that only a few were stolen, so in that context, yes it is the part that struck me.

The
Guardian reports "33 major items and around 2,000 minor works have gone". So to use the 33 number as the "real" number of items stolen is almost as bogus as the original claim (an exageration factor of 65 compared to a factor of 81 for the original claim). Over 33 major pieces and 2,000 pieces minor pieces from a museum in the birthplace of civilization is NOT inconsequential however it may relate to the original claim. Civilization is not about to be reborn again anytime soon so there is no replacing those items. Toss the numbers around however you'd like, there was a significant loss.

Re:neccessary?

[smallpaul]

Yes, the GPL "ebodies the principles of Free software" but the Free Software Foundation recognizes many other licenses as Free. In particular, there are many license that are Free but non-viral, like the X license or the Python license. The FSF says: "The term ``open source'' software is used by some people to mean more or less the same thing as free software. However, their criteria are somewhat less strict; they have accepted some kinds of license restrictions that we have rejected as unacceptable."

Re:neccessary?

[Simon Brooke]

Well, Dmitry was in Las Vegas at the time, so that's inside the border. If you rob a casino in Vegas, you get arrested, whether you're Russian or not. Better to argue that the law is flawed than to argue about jurisdiction.

Dmitri was in Moscow when he 'committed' the alleged 'crime'. Except that it wasn't a crime in Moscow, it was perfectly legal. He was later invited to a conference in the United States where he spoke on a related topic, but what he said is not alleged to have been criminal (anywhere). So he committed no crime either in the United States or anywhere else in the world. He did something in Moscow which might have been criminal if he had done it in the United States, but he didn't.

There are lots of things that are legal in one country but illegal in another. For example, carrying or even posessing any sort of hand gun is illegal here in Scotland. Do you think that if you've ever carried a handgun anywhere in the world, if you visit Scotland you should be arrested and charged?