Interview: Ask Bruce Perens What You Will 129
Bruce Perens is a computer programmer and one of the most important advocates for the open source community. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative with ESR and has worked towards reforms of national and international technology policies. He is an amateur radio enthusiast, and has pushed for open radio communication standards. He is also our interview guest today. As usual, ask as many questions as you'd like, but please, one per post.
Er...what's left in "open source" to talk about? (Score:5, Interesting)
Having lived through the entire lifecycle of "open source," it seems like its place in development communities and businesses is well-established, with a mix of different licensing and deployment models for whatever anyone wants to do.
So...is there really anything interesting left in "open source" to talk about? (Software patents, maybe, but even that's picked up some case law.)
Question (Score:3, Interesting)
Newton (Score:2, Interesting)
After the Newton School shooting you posted on Slashdot that you would be willing to give up your second amendment right to prevent something like that from happening again. What other rights would you be willing to give up?
State of the Union address / 16 this year (Score:4, Interesting)
The OSI is 16 this year and in many ways has experienced a difficult childhood but has grown stronger as a result.
What challenges do you forsee out child for the future?
Credit for the OSS movement (Score:3, Interesting)
Some years ago, around 2006, I attended a talk from Eric S. Raymond at a venue large enough to accommodate his massive ego and still leave room for attendees. He informed that he had essentially given HP their Open Source strategy. Your name was not mentioned once. I am curious what were your discussions like at HP during your time there, specifically in regards to the ideals of Free Software versus Open Source. My question specifically:
What legal and financial hurdles and impacts, if any, did HP (and other companies) face when deciding between Open Source and Free Software models? I.e., what proprietary assets/IP could not be completely "freed"? What were the savings/costs associated with the decisions?