On 17 Jun 2008, at 11:20, Rob Myers wrote:
>
> Quoting Steve Lambert <[log in to unmask]>:
>
>> True open source development requires volunteers.
>
> I agree that the value of open projects is that they bring in value
> from the community. But it is possible for projects to be primarily
> funded and maintained by corporations such as IBM, Sun, Apple and
> Red Hat. And some projects are developed with little community
> involvement, Qt and MySQL for example.
Many of the big Hollywood animation companies have insane amounts of
Linux developers on their payrolls. Most of their systems are open
source and Linux based. Interestingly enough they share code/tools
freely between organisations (cinepaint, renderman, FLTK to name a
few tools) as they tend to see it as a productive development
strategy. I wonder if they would be able to do this if they were
developing new rendering techniques on propriatary systems, even if
they were willing they would probably be hampered by the nature of
the systems and licensing agreements they signed up to.
>
>> So open source requires active, engaged volunteers to work on a
>> project collaboratively. I think you'd have a hard time
>> wrangling enough volunteers to work on a project that would
>> create harmful viruses.
>
> There are shared libraries of code for viruses produced by
> volunteers. And the criminal gangs that produce botnet software
> borrow each others code. The lure of criminal wealth motivates some
> people quite strongly.
Wireshark, airsnort and FakeAP while not being viruses, they are open
source tools of dubious moral integrity...
>
>> This is getting into science fiction, but I wonder if it would have
>> been possible to rally enough support to develop the weapons
>> technology
>> we have through volunteer open source development? Would we have
>> gone
>> to space? Would we have created half the harmful chemicals that
>> exist?
>
> Given that "Open Source" is essentially the scientific method
> applied to software production and that weaponry, chemicals and
> space exploration have been produced by that method I would say yes.
Perl was developed at NASA
What worries me most is that lots of weapons systems use windows.
Dominic
>
> - Rob.
>
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