[Nolug] Broadcast Engineering: Open Source development

Hello,

http://broadcastengineering.com/ar/broadcasting_open_source_development/index.htm

This was a very interesting article.

Some comments:
- "Not just free as in “freeware” distributed at no cost, but free
  in the sense that the source code is made available to anyone who
  wants it."
  Although it is implied in paragraph 3, I think that it should be
  made explicit to those not "in the know" that OSS is copyrighted.
- "Critics also point out that, while some programs in the Open Source
  community are well supported, other programs have relatively small
  followings and support is at the whim of the developers."
  "Open Source supporters reply that the same arguments can be applied
  to commercially available software..."
  Thank you for making the same point about closed-source s/w (CSS).
  It must also be emphasized that if the company developing CSS goes
  out of business, you're stuck. If the developer of OSS walks away,
  it's ok, since "you" (or your designee) has the source code to
  keep the project alive.
- Proprietary Digital Rights Management schemes (via government
  mandates) may (for all intents and purposes) kill certain OSS
  projects, like Linux, GNOME & KDE. This is because CSS DRM
  mechanisms would be needed to run software. (Fritz Hollings
  is Evil.)

Sincerely,
Ron

-- 
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| Ron Johnson, Jr.     mailto:ron.l.johnson@cox.net          |
| Jefferson, LA  USA   http://members.cox.net/ron.l.johnson  |
|                                                            |
| "What other evidence do you have that they are terrorists, |
|  other than that they trained in these camps?"             |
|   17-Sep-2002 Katie Couric to an FBI agent regarding the 5 |
|   men arrested near Buffalo NY                             |
+------------------------------------------------------------+
___________________
Nolug mailing list
nolug@nolug.org