[109717] in Cypherpunks
Re: Virus, Media and Open systems
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (chatski carl)
Fri Apr 2 12:01:54 1999
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 11:44:16 -0500 (EST)
From: chatski carl <chatski@gl.umbc.edu>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
cc: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990401081459.008b1160@idiom.com>
Reply-To: chatski carl <chatski@gl.umbc.edu>
Thanks for your detailed and well thought out reply.
On Thu, 1 Apr 1999, Bill Stewart wrote:
>.......
> >What about the point of view that in the interconnected world, one should
> >not use proprietary software, only open source software :)
>........
> The advantages of open source are that it's often easier to get
> fixes developed and distributed, ....
The major advantage is you _know_ what your software is doing! I think it
already illegal to try to determine what your proprietary software is
doing. Secondly, since it is developed voluntarily, it will be better
then software devloped for profit. :) And thirdly we are in collective
control of it, outside the monied economy.
> The obvious thing to replace Word with is a full-featured HTML editor,
> where full-featured _doesn't_ include executing Jabbascript.
> I prefer the purist approach to HTML/SGML that says that it's a
> content description language, not a page layout language,
I really support this ... you are suggesting a triumph of content over
form,.... very radical :)
- Carl
