Taoism of open source
,----[ Quote ]
| Open source is such a soft power. "Soft power is like water," Lao-tzu
| explained in his book, Tao Te Ching. A single water drop is powerless, but
| numerous water drops are torrential. Likewise, a single open source
| participant counts for little, but numerous participants make the open source
| community strong. Traditional software, on the other hand, is a hard power,
| like teeth. One big tooth can be strong (take Microsoft, for example), but
| teeth fall out as time goes by.
|
| [...]
|
| In "The GNU Operating System and the Free Software Movement", Richard
| Stallman explained why he didn't go to the temple of closed source software.
| He said, "The easy choice was to join the proprietary software world, signing
| nondisclosure agreements and promising not to help my fellow hacker.... I
| could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I
| knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building
| walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse
| place."
|
| This is the spirit of open source that I like.
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http://www.linux.com/feature/119429
Related:
Open Source and the Art of War
,----[ Quote ]
| Ask most people who have made the switch to a libre software product
| like Linux or BSD and they'll tell you that we're in a fight with
| Microsoft and everything that the closed-source world represents. It's
| not just us - Microsoft certainly thinks we're in a battle as well.
|
| Senior Microsoft leadership are actively engaged in spreading Fear,
| Uncertainty and Doubt to undermine the public confidence in Linux.
| Lawsuits have been filed over "stolen code" in the Linux kernel.
|
| Thinly-veiled "IP infringement" threats have been made to businesses
| running Linux. Massive marketing campaigns are being waged to confuse
| the true Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of Windows and Linux products'
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http://www.openaddict.com/applying_the_art_of_war_to_open_source.html
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