"The Open Source Acidity Test"

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (robert)]

It's unfortunate that Ted Lewis ("The Open Source Acidity Test", Computer,
Binary Critic, Feb 1999) does not understand the difference between
"freeware" and "free software" (or "open source").  Open source is not
freeware -- open source licenses only requires that the source code be
available for free (or at a nominal distribution code), not the binaries.
Just because the price of open source distributions (such as Red Hat
Linux) is increasing due to the hiring of programmers does not mean that
the open source movement is doomed.  In fact, the contrary is true:
because outfits like Red Hat are hiring programmers, the quality of the
software developed will only get better, even if the binaries become more
expensive.  Most important of all, the source code will always remain
available.