On Fri, 27 Feb 2004 16:25:17 +1100, James Caska wrote:

>...<
> But.. Jump back to the 'spirit' of OpenSource for a second and that
> 'F.U' intention.. There is another organism out there that get's itself
> inside of a host organism and then busily re-organises that organism to
> manufacture more of it'self... Sounds familiar to anyone who has caught
> a cold! It's amazing how close these OpenSource licenses look like virus
> definitions.. Easy absorbtion from low barrier to entry (free), Self
> reproduction (any other code that contains it becomes it).. Etc.
>
> And well like any other virus introduced to a host with no immune system
> .. It gets a chance to run riot for a while before the host recognises
> the foreign body. By persuing legal options OpenSource has revealed
> it'self as a malignant virus rather than a benign symbiotic one and the
> Software Industries immune response is kicking in.. White blood cells
> are being manufactured as we speak isolating the runaway virus'
> extracting it from otherwise healthy code and creating early warning
> defence systems such a company policies to recognise the viral code
> before it benetrates the code-cell membrane.

Sounds familiar indeed, when you think of how Microsoft has got where it is: for example the famous "free"
inclusion of Internet Explorer as part of Windows creates the low barrier to entry that you mention, leading
to the widely-held opion that "everyone" has IE, so that creating web sites that are only usable by those
running IE is acceptable.  And this has the effect of "spreading" IE even among those who don't want to use
it, so that they can read these web sites, which means that they have to pay for Windows even if they'd rather
use something else.  So the "free" IE has increased sales of Windows.  Sounds pretty "viral" to me, and not a
sign of Open Source!  The White Cells in this case could be seen to be the "Free Software" movement, trying to
reclaim the free choice of software, and this is where the "free" comes from - not "no financial payment" but
"freedom to choose".

But your analogy and my accessory to it miss one vital difference between biological visuses and the software
we're talking about - nobody *wants* to catch a cold!  The cold virus is an uninvited invader with no benefit
to the infected body.  Software has a benefit to users and they willingly acquire, install and use it to
achieve a given end, and if they don't like it for any reason (the way it works/looks, the system overhead it
imposes, the licencing conditions, the reputation of the supplier, anything at all!) then they can choose not
to use it.  Any "viral" behaviour is part of the "price" and anyone can choose not to pay it, by not using
that software.  (This obviously excludes virus / trojan horse / malware, because obviously they *are* like
biological viruses in being uninvited intruders).

Cheers,

Howard Winter
St.Albans, England

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