🚀 go-pugleaf

 

Reposted from comp.internet.net-happenings:
 
---------------
 
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:25:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Ellen Elias <elias@ora.com>
 
PRESS ALERT
To arrange an interview with Tim O'Reilly, please contact Ellen Elias:
elias@oreilly.com or (707)829-0515 ext. 322.
 
NETSCAPE'S FREEWARE MOVE A RETURN TO INTERNET ROOTS
O'Reilly & Associates President Responds to News of Freely Available
Source Code
 
January 23, 1998, Sebastopol, CA-- The Internet freeware community is
fired up about yesterday's news that Netscape will be making its new
Communicator Source Code freely available on the Internet.
 
Noted Internet pioneer Tim O'Reilly, President/CEO of the company most
widely known for championing the cause of freeware, made the following
comments on Netscape's decision:
 
"Freeware is the lifeblood of the Internet.  All of the truly significant
Internet technologies were originally developed by distributed communities
of developers who freely shared their source code and built on each other's
work.
 
"A few years ago, when the great Internet gold rush started, companies such
as Netscape and Microsoft tried to assert ownership of Internet standards,
only to find vitality and innovation slipping away, as they lost touch with
the developer community that had originally created those standards.
 
"It's no accident that despite all the ink spilled over the war between
Netscape and Microsoft, the dominant web server software is still the
freeware Apache server, and that for all the hype about Java, it is
still the freeware Perl language that activates the majority of web sites.
 
"Netscape's decision shows that it recognizes the enormous power of the
freeware development model, and that it has the courage to look for new
ways to harness what has quietly become the most successful software
development paradigm.  After spending three years trying to act like
Microsoft, Netscape is returning to its roots and starting to act like
a real Internet company again."
 
Netscape reportedly attributed its decision in part to developer Eric
Raymond's groundbreaking paper on the freeware development model, The
Cathedral and the Bazaar, which was one of the keynote addresses at
O'Reilly's Perl Conference last summer.  For the complete text of the
paper, see http://www.ccil.org/~esr/writings/cathedral.html
 
More information about O'Reilly & Associates is available at
 
http://www.oreilly.com/. Information about Perl is available at
 
http://www.perl.com/.
 
-------------------------------
--
####    |\^/|     Colin R. Leech     ag414 or crleech@freenet.carleton.ca
#### _|\|   |/|_  Civil engineer by training, transport planner by choice.
#### >         <  Opinions are my own. You may consider them shareware.
####  >_./|\._<   "If you can't return a favour, pass it on." - A.L. Brown