[FYI] From code war to Cold War

["Axel H Horns" <axel.h.horns@gmx.net>]

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3537165.stm>

>From code war to Cold War

A new cold war has broken out in the software world, technology 
analyst Bill Thompson believes, and it will shape our futures.

Things are getting serious over in the US, where two mighty forces 
are fighting for a position of control over the daily lives of 
millions of people.

Statue of Lenin, AP
Open code is not communism
The battle is not for the presidency, although the antics of George 
Bush and John Kerry are obviously of some importance to the rest of 
the world, but for the ability to shape the way we design, build and 
use computer software.

It is the conflict between two different ideologies of software 
development.

One is personified by Microsoft and its closed and copyright-
protected code, and the other represented by the free software and 
open source movements, whose most prominent offering is the GNU/Linux 
operating system.

And it has become a new Cold War, a fight between competing 
philosophies which underpin completely divergent economic systems and 
patterns of social organisation.

Given the growing importance of computer programs in our daily lives 
and the operation of business. It could well be the defining conflict 
of the first half of this century, just as the conflict between 
communism and capitalism defined the latter half of the last one. 

[...]



*---------

<http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/07/1414245>

Linux & Microsoft as a Cold War?

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday March 07, @09:56AM
from the now-thats-serious-flamebait-1 dept.

I confirm writes "The BBC's Bill Thompson summarises the GNU/Linux 
vs. Microsoft struggle as a "cold war", and in one choice quote 
says:"It is rather ironic that Microsoft and other closed model 
companies rather resemble the Stalinist or Maoist model of a command 
economy with complete centralised control." I'm not sure I accept 
Thompson's conclusions, however: "So now would be a good time to 
start thinking about how we persuade governments that market in 
software may eventually need to be regulated, just as the market in 
electricity, water and food is, and that that regulation may well 
include a statutory duty to disclose source code and allow it to be 
used elsewhere."

[...]




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