Hi all,
I mentioned to folks earlier that I had an article on the history and role of government promoting open source software appearing in THE AMERICAN PROSPECT. I am including a quick release on it with URLs. There is also a roundtable on the issues involved, where they put me in with two libertarians (Eric Raymond and a REASON magazine guy) along with a corporate technology lawyer, so if folks have any thoughts for the next round of comments I have to submit by Monday, it would be appreciated.
Thanks -- Nathan Newman
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In this month's special issue by THE AMERICAN PROSPECT on "After Microsoft: The Open Source Society", former NetAction staffer Nathan Newman has an article "Storming the Gates" on the history of open source software and its challenge to Microsoft. The article is located at http://www.prospect.org/archives/V11-10/newman-n.html This is part of a general set of articles in the current magazine discussing Open Source and other technology issues.
Based on his longer NetAction report "The Origins and Future of Open Source Software: A NetAction White Paper" at http://netaction.org/opensrc/future/, Newman's article addresses the public policy implications of open source software as an alternative to Microsoft. Noting the often overlooked history of government policy's promotion of free and open source code software in building the Internet, his article highlights the need for the federal government to combine its antitrust restrictions on Microsoft with positive support for an open source alternative.
As well, THE AMERICAN PROSPECT has convened an online roundtable to discuss Nathan Newman's article and others in the issue, including Newman himself, open source advocate Eric Raymond, REASON magazine's Jeff Taylor, and technology lawyer Jonathan Band. The roundtable is at http://www.prospect.org/controversy/open_source/