From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED,FREEMAIL_FROM,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 15065 invoked from network); 8 Feb 2023 21:30:55 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 8 Feb 2023 21:30:55 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A50A340D35; Thu, 9 Feb 2023 07:30:22 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-lf1-f51.google.com (mail-lf1-f51.google.com [209.85.167.51]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id DA29F40D31 for ; Thu, 9 Feb 2023 07:30:19 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-lf1-f51.google.com with SMTP id u12so483815lfq.0 for ; Wed, 08 Feb 2023 13:30:19 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20210112; h=content-transfer-encoding:cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from :in-reply-to:references:mime-version:from:to:cc:subject:date :message-id:reply-to; bh=b+H3fD8qsKkhjzu1rlVb6rZx0oPPEUd3DZwa6XJMNvU=; b=JBjLFKnvoGmFfy9Rm3zJ4n84gjTp86o8YfoIzQ8wp8n7XzxImPJ9gZxMADA6DgTw59 R6LWSpQNo62KdKaU9nwFGoSSmOvl0t5tcT9jq4fbXwwYccTAIpiwnCuFUDyhh+uoSAeS v1o2xXJdC9sRx7If369lfjXHNSf8UKu0kQUoWqThB4kjLn8KmaknjubS1GAmfbnXdBhs uws+iWIJbfwCRZag7Jab7NYRPa8yjDEZqaJ9SwMUOkIY0Ypdr6cgOeYeJIXLa2gs0nQJ uqqoI6olzgag3Andw1nVl7T7yxDFwNxkaHQiaqTxfhc1O7xLHDOis6CYUkBimV3jLCqX V//A== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20210112; h=content-transfer-encoding:cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from :in-reply-to:references:mime-version:x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc :subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=b+H3fD8qsKkhjzu1rlVb6rZx0oPPEUd3DZwa6XJMNvU=; b=qw9VKDGOkKR8uw0x0wMM3ykMvDVm91F3wtkRq4Z62tSowSaMU37wVSVQoJawng6v4G UtJ2vethF/RFXGVPiZlruG5SHeSAtPoPGbq60czovWfbJSNBG8dcWg0Aq50P3bGZBDk7 BWAZZ/5DuaokOLwufj/x+B/TOMobXAGEGnS49h/i8zDLE1VGOgU6Zp5m6DgtD1dqFX6H wqGAjnVvkZsqo4DflRtD+VzMySgqcVLQxJLDx/jFUw0JJWg3mZjvEvETJrNLo74YWcPz z5O1NlJO5ZPjZG2O8jFp2CkdaUZpizOsDCmPmZDakMBKQ17RBfFOvli7XC+Qfl1wriAz v7zw== X-Gm-Message-State: AO0yUKUtrEytORYDTZb72Q3pMoSgSh634j/TEImrO9DaVmvKaruwE7oh jmvAjHNOOSkxruxdvDPyGUhTkUg1D5JaaEvBqI0= X-Google-Smtp-Source: AK7set9pBk0q/nMc7p3+yhRPcXbjRScMUYsJ2s8b3dWdiw7wr6WRmNKp23c403OyC1Y3YdnnJDP4uX8bBujJ8d/La9o= X-Received: by 2002:ac2:5481:0:b0:499:fa38:3da4 with SMTP id t1-20020ac25481000000b00499fa383da4mr1366146lfk.12.1675891757959; Wed, 08 Feb 2023 13:29:17 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: In-Reply-To: From: Dan Cross Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2023 16:28:41 -0500 Message-ID: To: Warner Losh Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID-Hash: UAUW6NMR5LU7XNLWU3GCHZHL3V7XDVLN X-Message-ID-Hash: UAUW6NMR5LU7XNLWU3GCHZHL3V7XDVLN X-MailFrom: crossd@gmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: COFF X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: history of community help for unix users everywhere List-Id: Computer Old Farts Forum Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: [TUHS to Bcc: and +COFF] On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 3:50 PM Warner Losh wrote: > [snip] > The community aspect of open source was there in spades as well, with peo= ple helping other people and sharing fixes. But it was complicated by restr= ictive license agreements and somewhat (imho) overzealous protection of 'ri= ghts' at times that hampered things and would have echos in later open sour= ce licenses and attitudes that would develop in response. Even though the t= erm 'open source' wasn't coined until 1998, the open source ethos were pres= ent in many of the early computer users groups, not least the unix ones. Don't forget SHARE! Honestly, I think the IBM mainframe community doesn't get its due. There was actually a lot of good stuff there. > USENET amplified it, plus let in the unwashed masses who also had useful = contributions (in addition to a lot of noise)... then things got really cro= wded with noise when AOL went live... And I'm sure there's a number of othe= r BBS and/or compuserve communities I'm giving short-shrift here because I = wasn't part of them in real time. The phenomenon of "September" being the time when all the new undergrads got their accounts and discovered USENET and the shenanigans that ensued was well-known. Eternal September when AOL got connected was a serious body blow. As for BBSes...I'd go so far as to say that the BBS people were the AOL people before the AOL people were the AOL people. A takeaway from both was that communities with established norms but no way beside social pressure to enforce them have a hard time scaling. USENET worked when the user population was small and mostly amenable to a set of shared goals centered around information exchange (nevermind the Jim Flemings and other well-known cranks of the world). But integrating someone into the fold took effort both on the community's part as well as the user; when it wasn't obvious that intrinsic motivation was required, or hordes of users just weren't interested, it didn't work very well. I think this is something we see over and over again with social networks. - Dan C.