On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 9:14 PM, saidimu apale <saidimu@gmail.com> wrote:
Hopefully without opening a can of nasty worms,
You shouldn't even bother worrying about *opening* the can ... when some of our supposed ICT leaders are ever so busy breeding new worms and locking them in the can for reasons best known only to themselves. Wash the can sparkling cling on the outside, then announce to the world what a wonderful technology nation they are making.
(there are a lot of *private* modifications to FOSS that are not released, contrary to the opensource licenses).
That's illegal. "The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ruled that just because a software programmer freely gave his work away, it didn’t follow that it could not be protected." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/14/open_source_creative_commons_license... Dispelling the "Intellectual Property" Myths One of the most common misunderstandings regarding intellectual property rights, particularly copyright, is that the actual creators are the main beneficiaries of the grant. In reality, it is the large companies that employ creators and then strip them of their copyright through contracts who actually benefit from the grant society intended as a reward for authors. This important misunderstanding is no accident. Misleading "romantic notions of authorship" are systematically spun by the companies who stand in the shoes of creators to justify the generous monopoly right rewarded to them. http://www.imaginelaw.com/lawyer-attorney-1181356.html
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 1:57 PM, Gakuru Alex <alexgakuru.lists@gmail.com> wrote:
Let's argue the opposite. How much code do our local closed source defenders contribute? Or would they be mostly just commissioned resellers occasionally offering some "additional" vendor lockin services at sizable personal incomes/fees?
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 8:45 PM, saidimu apale <saidimu@gmail.com> wrote:
Very true. But the code is the foundation of all other involvements. No code, no community. Bad code, bad community. And since this is (mostly?) a developer list, I assume (perhaps wrongly) that that is where people interests/abilities lie. I like what you're saying: what other non-coding opportunities exist? I hope documentation isn't one of them cuz I don't know any one who likes doing it. Perhaps filing good bug reports? Helping out in newbie forums? saidi
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 1:17 PM, Gakuru Alex <alexgakuru.lists@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 8:07 PM, saidimu apale <saidimu@gmail.com> wrote:
I once asked the same question to Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu's "benevolent dictator" ( the occasion was UbuntuBelowZero developer preparations for Ubuntu 6.04). I'd noticed that 99.9% of the developers in the room were white so I asked him how it was that an "African" distro (as it was being marketed then) had virtually no African developers.
I have never considered nor confined Open Source to "code contributors." _______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general
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