Re: [h2o-discuss] E.Raymond's essay

["Tuyet A. Tran" <tatn2000@yahoo.com>]

I once studied neuroscience long enough to grasp an
awesome amount of money used to funding the research
projects & applied clinical trials just only in the
field of neurology. By the time of this writing, these
drug consortium have reaped phenomenal successes. The
university, researchers & students involved also
gained from the companies' profits. Isn't that impetus
for the proliferation of developing generic drugs in
order to reduce the costs to the consumers? I
understand that the cost structure is different but,
does this also means a separatist approach in that,
the free-source advocates are necessarily antagonists
to the corporation? On the upside, the open-source
community certainly has impacted Macintosh to reveal
some of the source codes.   

I raised the medical research comparison because I
don't really think that most bench researchers 
necessarily think about their end results will somehow
or inevitably, link to the betterment of patients.
They are somewhat removed from the daily onslaught of
patients and day-to-day people interactions. They're
not that much different than a computer scientist who
designs her/is programs. On a more simplistic level,
the elation comes from the discovery therefore, those
who like to experiment, testing and discover will
invariably like to share and spread the news (goods)
at least on a temporary basis. 

It is laudable to advocate the open-source but, how
often does an average person who uses a computer will
be efficient in handling Linux and a plethora of open
codes? Unless, the intent is to promote and protect
the opensource code freedom within academic settings
and/or those who happen to use these source codes. I
am all for open source codes. On the other hand,  I
don't think that it should be discussed within the
context of exclusivity and the "us" against
"corporations" are necessarily productive. On the
upside, the open-source community certainly has
impacted Macintosh to reveal some of the source codes.
Every other e-tech reports routinely contained someone
from Microsoft dismissing the impact or threat by the
open source community.  

BTW, I think that it's great for me to read a myriad
of viewpoints from people whom I would never be
exposed to in my studies &/or life experience. Thank
you.

Tuyet
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