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

[Peter Murray-Rust]

On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 3:46 PM, Nick Barnes <nb at climatecode.org> wrote:

> 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).
>

I support what Nick has written

Membership of OKF groups does not depend on political views and is
primarily determined by alignment with the philosophical, practical and
social goals of making information Open and devising ways to do this
(within the law). I do not agree with ESR's views on climate and guns but I
respect his clear commitment to Open Source. It can be argued that a major
problem in the climate change debate is lack of Open information and that
everybody will feel enhanced by this.

By contrast I find it harder to accommodate people who use "Open" in a
shifting manner and accept a much more limited view of access - and that is
why we have set up this list.

OKF is a broad church, reaching out to many different types of community
and people. We should welcome this diversity. Among other things it
provides a greater set of views of which we have to be aware and for which
we have to prepare arguments for or against or compromise.

P.


> --
> Nick Barnes, Climate Code Foundation, http://climatecode.org/
>
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>



-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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