[FYI] From code war to Cold War
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3537165.stm>
>From code war to Cold War
A new cold war has broken out in the software world, technology
analyst Bill Thompson believes, and it will shape our futures.
Things are getting serious over in the US, where two mighty forces
are fighting for a position of control over the daily lives of
millions of people.
Statue of Lenin, AP
Open code is not communism
The battle is not for the presidency, although the antics of George
Bush and John Kerry are obviously of some importance to the rest of
the world, but for the ability to shape the way we design, build and
use computer software.
It is the conflict between two different ideologies of software
development.
One is personified by Microsoft and its closed and copyright-
protected code, and the other represented by the free software and
open source movements, whose most prominent offering is the GNU/Linux
operating system.
And it has become a new Cold War, a fight between competing
philosophies which underpin completely divergent economic systems and
patterns of social organisation.
Given the growing importance of computer programs in our daily lives
and the operation of business. It could well be the defining conflict
of the first half of this century, just as the conflict between
communism and capitalism defined the latter half of the last one.
[...]
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<http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/07/1414245>
Linux & Microsoft as a Cold War?
Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday March 07, @09:56AM
from the now-thats-serious-flamebait-1 dept.
I confirm writes "The BBC's Bill Thompson summarises the GNU/Linux
vs. Microsoft struggle as a "cold war", and in one choice quote
says:"It is rather ironic that Microsoft and other closed model
companies rather resemble the Stalinist or Maoist model of a command
economy with complete centralised control." I'm not sure I accept
Thompson's conclusions, however: "So now would be a good time to
start thinking about how we persuade governments that market in
software may eventually need to be regulated, just as the market in
electricity, water and food is, and that that regulation may well
include a statutory duty to disclose source code and allow it to be
used elsewhere."
[...]
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