Gore declares Web site "open source" (fwd)

[Michael Hoover]

> CNET News - April 8, 1999, 5:10 a.m. PT
> 
> Presidential hopeful Al Gore is causing a stir in tech land for
> declaring that his AlGore2000.com Web site is "open source."
> 
> It marks the second high-tech faux pas for the vice president, who was
> criticized last month for declaring that he helped invent the Internet.
> Gore is running on a platform that promotes the "new economy."
> 
> "This is your Web site--it's open source--and I want you to help us
> build it," Vice President Gore declares on his political Web site.
> 
> Those in the open-source software movement were puzzled. "Can a Web site
> be open source? Funniest thing I've seen all morning," said a posting on
> the Slashdot.org Web site. "I wonder if this will meet the open source
> requirements." .
> 
> The gaffe rattled Silicon Valley. "Is this a joke?" San Jose Mercury
> News' Dan Gillmor asked in his column today. "Apparently not. Which
> makes this a transcendently clumsy attempt to co-opt a newly popular
> buzzword and turn it to political advantage."