[DotGNU]Re: "Open source" is not what we do here

[Tony Stanco]

I am a Free Software person.

FreeDevelopers is a Free Software Company.

DotGNU, FreeDevelopers' first major project, is a Free Software project.

Project EGOVOS (Project E-Government Operating System), FreeDevelopers'
second major project, is a Free Software project.

When I use the term Open Source, I use it in the way it was originally
intended, as a marketing vehicle to get people who are not familiar with
Free Software to Free Software. I view the term as
Free-Software-on-training-wheels for people who have intellectual trouble
with the term. I do not view Open Source as a legitimate movement in
competition with Free Software. There is only one true Movement for Software
Freedom and it is Free Software. It started with Richard and its foundation
rest completely on the GPL.

Richard is the only one who understood almost 20 years ago the dangers that
the world would face from proprietary software. It takes a special person to
understand the threats that far in advance. It takes an extraordinary man to
suffer the fools who ridiculed him for 20 years as he spread the word.
Richard in my opinion will be remembered as a great man in history, because
he is part of the modern continuation of the march of human Freedom. Many
people are still unaware of the serious threat that proprietary software
poses in an age of interconnected digital machines, but they are learning
the hard way fast. The more they learn, the more important will be Richard's
message. There is no one in Open Source that comes anywhere close to
Richard's stature. History will be kinder to Richard than the present is,
but that is the case with all true philosophers. The second most important
person to the movement is Eben Moglen. He has the best legal mind I have
seen and the courage that most lawyers lack to follow his ideals. A lot of
the battle will be fought in the courts and in the legislatures and I have
no doubt Eben will rise to the challenge. So we have the philosophy and the
law covered. We just need a viable business model and the proprietary
paradigm falls away.

Free Software has nothing to fear from insurgent groups- whatever their name
or whoever leads them. The intellectual capital in firmly in the Free
Software camp, and it will prevail.

Richard, I told you over 2 years ago in our original email exchange that the
logical inconsistencies of what passed for Open Source principles and
business models would fall of their own weight and that the battle
ultimately would be between proprietary and the GPL. That time has arrived.
We should prepare for that and trust that history will apportion credit
appropriately where it is due.


>DotGNU is a free software project, part of the GNU Project.  "Open
>source" is not what we do, but many people think that it is, and we
>have to work hard to explain and remind them that it is not.  Your
>recent message which talks about activities in the name of "open
>source" would tend to encourage the mistake that we work to correct.
>
>In the future, if you send messages about open source activities,
>please preface them with something that acknowledges that DotGNU
>is a free software project, not an open source project.
>
>Your message mentioned an activity that Eben Moglen is working on.
>This is a free software activity, not an open source activity.
>When you write about it, please describe it as such.
>
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