Re: Inviting questions from SPI

On Fri, Jul 13, 2007 at 11:13:45AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> opportunity. Can you give an example of an illegitimate one, please?

I don't know if others can, but I can. Consider a talk on "open
source" that argues that some classes of license -- e.g. GNU Copyleft
-- are dangerous to the American Way and such like, while others --
e.g. the X Consortium or later BSD -- are business friendly and
therefore Good and Right. Such a talk might well actually be
promoted by certain large corporations who, themselves, make such an
argument. They'd be delighted, of course, to get implicit
underwriting by SPI or any other FOSS-community supporting groups. I
believe this sort of sly appropriating of others' message for
subversive aims is widely employed in the political world. And I
think it would be illegitimate. (Whether it can be detected is
another question entirely.)

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca
Everything that happens in the world happens at some place.
--Jane Jacobs