🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep16.000950.27645@decuac.dec.com> mjr@hussar.dco.dec.com (Marcus J. "Buddy can you spare a clue?" Ranum) writes:
>	What *IS* an "Open System"? Since I'm kind of a logical positivist
>sort of guy at heart, I'd like someone to propse a definition that is
>*testable* - or I consider it to be metaphysical. ;)

It seems that in this thread there are three types of articles... vendor
bashing articles, attempts at defining "Open Systems", and queries as to
what "Open Systems" really are.  I'll throw in with the second category
and define what the term means to me...  8-)

I think that in practical terms to the end user a system has to fulfill
the following requirements to be considered open:

Hardware -- Fully documented.  Schematics, signal traces, everything.

Software -- Source code available at non-prohibitive cost.  (i.e. not
            some outrageous multiple of the cost for the binary license.)

Simple, huh?  Unfortunately most vendors will scream: "Hey, we can't do
THAT!  If we do THAT, the competition will rip us to shreds!  The evil
South-East Asian criminal clone-makers will gut our market!  Evil
intellectual property-right thieves will steal our research investment!
What are you, crazy?"

Sigh.  Maybe they are even right... I don't know.  All I know is that
most systems I've had to deal recently didn't do everything I needed
them to do, and I couldn't enhance or adapt them to my needs because
they weren't open by my above definition.  Ergo...

Support the FSF and similar undertakings.  Let's start a "GNU computer"
project to add hardware to the effort.  I've long given up on the big 
vendors ever filling my needs... the more "Open" their glossies say they
are, the less open they seem to me.
--
Jurgen Botz                  |   Internet: JBotz@mtholyoke.edu
Academic Systems Consultant  |     Bitnet: JBotz@mhc.bitnet
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