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

Mon Feb 6 15:46:59 UTC 2012

On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 10:41, Björn Brembs <b.brembs at googlemail.com> wrote:
> I was rather thinking that I don't want to be associated
> with a climate change denialist...
>
> Bjoern
>
> Mike Taylor wrote:
>
>> 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.

Both Mike and Bjoern have good points against ESR: he has always been
an abrasive character.  He has strong and fixed political views with
which I have always differed and which now blinker him to climate
science.  Nonetheless, I enthusiastically welcome his involvement and
support.  Any collective includes some unusual, polarising, and even
unpleasant characters.  I would rather have them inside the tent,
directing their fire outwards.

In contrast, Richard Stallman, for whom I have huge respect (and with
whose politics I generally agree) sent me an email complaining about
my use of the expression "Free and Open Source software" in supporting
materials for the Science Code Manifesto, and has declined to endorse
the Manifesto (apparently because of my use of that expression in
those supporting materials).
-- 
Nick Barnes, Climate Code Foundation, http://climatecode.org/