Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 03 November 2009 07:48
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 4
A technologist known as
Alex Hudson noticed the document on
Wikileaks and
blogged about it; the people at Linux Weekly News noticed Hudson's post and
linked to it.
By the time I became aware of it via LWN, the venerable Abram had apparently developed cold feet; he had become aware that the document, which had been sent to selected customers of SirsiDynix, had leaked.
So what does the good Stephen do? He promptly creates
an entry on his
blog - which is called Stephen's Lighthouse (!) - calling for a respectful discussion!!! There's a Yiddish word which says it beautifully - chutzpah!
Here are a few gems from this secretive document. It is ostensibly created "to help buyers become aware of the limitations of open source... to clarify what open source is, how it is different from proprietary software platforms, and why Integrated Library Systems (ILS) are not ready for open source at this point."
The very next line in the document is pure FUD: "The concept of open source is fairly misunderstood and quite vague." What exactly people cannot understand about the two words "open" and "source" is mystifying. When Bruce Perens
coined that term to make it easy for business people to understand how free software could be useful to them, he left no room for ambiguity.
For the benefit of Mr Abram, here it is once again; open as opposed to close. Source, the base from which something is derived. Get that, sir?
There are different open source licences but the base elements are always the same. Nothing mysterious, nothing vague. My 14-year-old knows what it means. I presume that Mr Abram is somewhat older.
CONTINUED
