[ILUG] email sent to politicians about Mary Hannafin'sdecisionnotto use open source

[Kae Verens]

Rick Moen wrote:

>Quoting Martin List-Petersen (martin at list-petersen.net):
>
>  
>
>>I do fully agree. People should realise, that this not is a war
>>against Microsoft, but it is about the freedom of having access to the
>>source, modifying it if you wish and having more to choose from than
>>one company (on every part of the operating system).
>>    
>>
>
>Access to source is important, and permission to modify it, but neither
>is the key attribute of open source.  Ever heard of Microsoft
>Corporation's "Shared Source Initiative"?  It's a programme to give
>selected customers and business partners access to Microsoft source code
>under tight legal restrictions.  
>  
>
I'm not sure if anyone has picked up on this yet, or even if I'm reading 
it wrong myself, but it seems to me that Microsoft's "Shared Source 
Initiative" allows people to /view/ the source, but says nothing about 
changing any glaring errors in the source that are spotted by the viewee.

i.e.: It seems to me that a major difference between OS and Closed 
Source (CS?) is not just in being able to view the source, but also 
being able to recompile with a modified source. Microsoft does not allow 
that as far as I know.

Kae