[Open-access] Eric Raymond offer to help with "Open Access"

Sun Feb 5 23:11:14 UTC 2012

On 5 February 2012 22:21, Björn Brembs <b.brembs at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Peter Murray-Rust wrote:
>
>> Eric,
>> Many thanks indeed for your comment to my post [
>> http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/wp-admin/edit-comments.php?p=3476 ] and offer
>> in your last para
>
> Is this that guy:
> http://esr.ibiblio.org/
> ??
>
> If so, please, I don't want my name anywhere near his!

Yes, that's him.

I must admit that I have mixed feelings about Raymond myself.  He is
the main voice behind the Open Source labelling, which of course was
essentially a rebranding of the Free Software (free as in freedom)
that Richard M. Stallman had been advocating for many years.  Although
in mechanical terms Open Source and Free Software are very close, they
are a million miles apart in motivation: Free Software is
fundamentally an ethical and idealism movement, prizing freedom simply
because freedom is good; whereas Open Source is much more pragmatic,
and is explicitly about which way of building software tends to be
most efficient.

So his an our goals may be very similar; but I suspect our motivations
are not.  My advice would be to welcome him as an ally, but to be
cautious; and not to be surprised if we find down the line that his
and our interests diverge, maybe radically.

-- Mike.

>
> Thanks,
>
> Bjoern
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Björn Brembs
> ---------------------------------------------
> http://brembs.net
> Neurobiology
> Freie Universität Berlin
> Germany
>
>
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