Wow....... > > I hate it when elected politicans presume to speak for me. > I will not > > sit quietly and let self-appointed individuals try the > same. *DO NOT* > > tell me to my face that you are negotiating on my behalf or > even just > > for 95% of the other people who write or have written software that > > might be called "open" by virtue of being freely > redistributable and > > in use by lots of people until you can can point to the > results of a > > real plebiscite. Even then, you won't be speaking for me until I > > personally and explicitly say so. > > There's been no plebiscite, of course. However, web content > analyses and surveys of the licenses used at sites like > SourceForge and ibiblio paint a pretty consistent picture of > who developers consider the authorities on licensing and IPR > best practice. Those authorities are FSF and OSI. > Perhaps what you neglect is overlooked closed mindedness. It appears these organizations are the refuge of the developers who wish to force their narrow minded view of software right and wrong upon the masses. Many of the greatest contributions to software are the product of truly free software. Software with no demands as to it's further use. It seems to me incredibly refreshing that the IETF is able to step back and realize that both camps are just that, sides of an argument. The IETF freely distributes its documents and insists on nothing but disclosure of limitations, as opposed to demanding that anything be a certain way. If you give something with strings attached it is NOT giving, but a transaction, and therefore NOT free. I find it interesting that you would reference surveys of licenses on sites(2) as justification for any claim beyond what it is. What you say is analagous to a survey that says devout christians vote republican being applied to the population as a whole, and wreaks of politics. It seems you have no notion of the law of large numbers and have NO formal concept of population sampling theory, otherwise you wouldn't make egregious claims of grasping, much less representing the open source developer community as a whole (I'll not mention at all my distaste for your claim of being able to represent myself personally). Once again it's very nice to see the IETF say that people are just that, people. Clearly your desire to be an 800 pound gorilla and carry the respect of more than 1 person is directly at odds with accepted IETF philosophy, and I don't need contrived statistcs to make that claim, because it's in an RFC that was reached by consensus. Do you think your claims could make it through the same rigorous screening process? Could we get an RFC titled "Eric Raymond Represents Open source community to IETF" passed? Or even "FSF and OSI represent defacto Open Source Beliefs"? I think not, so perhaps this is the wrong forum to try to make such claims. > While I respect your desire that I not represent you (or > claim to), the reality is that people outside our community > are generally going to behave as if I do. OSI as an > organization, and I as an individual, had to build that > reputation in order to represent *anybody* effectively, let > alone the large number of developers that want us to. > And this was a job that needed doing, so I won't apologize > for taking it on. > > I do in fact believe I have your best interests at heart; > this is a safe thing for me to believe, because I have no > actual power over you. > I do not require that you trust me, though that would be > nice. Many people do trust me and don't seem to have been > harmed by it. > > You're a typical member of the 5%, in that what bothers you > is not policies or the effects of what we do, but our implied > claim to represent you. I do not presume to criticize your > position, but neither am I going to abandon my duty to > hackers who *do* want OSI to represent them on any single > refusenik's say-so. Perhaps the desire is that you comment on your reality and leave others' reality to them. Perhaps what's lacking is a clear definition of respect. Do you think you represent acadamia? You seem to ignore the underpinnings of open source which came from the scientific ideology of peer review and sharing for the good and knowledge of all. How odd that acadamia often chooeses BSD style licenses. How odd that folks in acadamia value sharing over evangalizing open source on everybody. Do you think you represent hardware makers that write open source products to aid developers and induce hardware sales? Do you think you represent Folks who work at proprietary sofware companies by day, and come home to donate their time to the open source community If you truly believe that you have my best interests at heart and have the right to represent ME than there's probably nothing anyone can do to shake that. I however will happily tell you otherwise, and than continue to read down this discussion curiously to see how many people jump to your banner, and how many people respond as I did. As for my self, hopefully, I came forward with some thought provoking logic and ideas that people who consider themselves intellectuals can analyze and grow from. I DO NOT, as you demonstrate, hope to achieve my ends through politiking, propaganda, intimidation, and unvalidated claims. To me all it seems you're doing is putting a lot of effort into margnializing everyone else to achieve your ends in a forum where you'll probably succeed at little else than marginalizing yourself. From what I've read it seems that neither the greater good nor progress even come close to mattering compared to your "duty to hackers". Great. Tom _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf