Re: [9fans] Inferno magazine ad

[cLIeNUX user <r@your_host.com>]

humbubba@smart.net
>
>forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk wrote in message
>>we've taken some stick for that advert too, mainly from people that
>>didn't realise that `Linux' and Embedded Linux' aren't the same thing,
>>and are not always available under the same terms (hence, `Maybe').
>
>
>Some of this stick and confusion has come from well known figures within
>the Open Source movement (have a look at the interview with
>Bruce Perens at http://forums.itworld.com) who ought to
>know better.  There is an almost
>blind assumption that any product with Linux in the name is
>Open Source.  Here is my response (more or less) to
>the accusation by Perens that we were spreading fud about
>Linux.
>
>"Our ads have not been aimed at Linux at all but
>rather those embedded Linux distributions that
>benefit from being eponymously named after a
>significant contributor to the Open Source movement
>whilst simultaneously discarding many of his princples.
>
>With one or two notable exceptions, most embedded
>linux distributions attract royalties and do not provide
>access to all the source code under an open source licence."

It's interesting that Linux is becoming Forth from the top down.
Embedded has kept Forth alive. This is because you can make money on it.
Forth is too flexible to make money on as software only. The interpreter
includes the (usually threaded-code) compiler. Your first customer can
easily become your first competitor. This is the problem that drives my
Linux/GNU/unix distro. Open source is clearly technically superior. The
unix/Internet community has shown this, and Forth shows this by the
astounding elegance of a compiling interpreter.

Another market paradigm is needed. Unfortunately, no one with any clout is
proposing or initiating one. GPL is orthogonal to this problem. This is
indicated by the problems of GPL and LGPL vis-a-vis a Forth. Neither GPL
or LGPL really addresses how Forth works. The ASCAP/BMI mechanism of
artist royalties does. On the radio the compensatable entity is the song.
In Forth it's the word. In unix it's the file.


Rick Hohensee
www.clienux.com