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So which will it be?
Once again, you are confusing the issue.

Open Standards are when everyone agrees what the output should be with a given set of inputs and they go back to their own desk and write the solution their way. They put it out on the market in competition with other solutions.

Open Source means that the code is open to review (if the author so chooses) and open to change, provided the next person down the line publishes those changes along with the original and proper credit is given to both.

Open Standards built the Internet through RFC acceptance. IBM's open standards created the PC market we have today. Lotus Intel and Microsoft created the LIM spec to solve memory issues on the early PCs. There are lots of examples to go around.

Open Source is another form of monoculture where everyone uses everyone else's code for their own proposes. One bug in the zlib libraries and everyone the uses it has the same problem. Because people treat it as Free Beer, it suffers from the Caveat Emptor syndrome like any other software: There is no warranty either expressly stated or implied. And it's certainly less filling.

You can have Open Standards (WWW consortium), defacto standards (the pinouts on a serial cable) or whatever standards you want (IBM's PC spec)just so long as everyone knows where you are going and goes along with it to provide order in the market place.

Publishing code for free? That's Open source. Welcome to the Sixties.
Posted by: John Dulles   Posted on: 10/16/03 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use
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Open Standard ?  JJ_z | 10/16/03
Oh, the only defacto standards are on Windows?  DonnieBoy | 10/16/03
Useful observation  John Carroll ZDNet Moderator | 10/17/03
Linux rules servers  Always Annoyed | 10/17/03
open source can make money to  NemesisNL | 10/21/03
Useful observation  John Carroll ZDNet Moderator | 10/17/03
But it does generate revenue  Green Peace | 10/17/03
Investigate for your self  sujai.nath@... | 10/16/03
Investigate for yourself?  slopoke | 10/16/03
Not true  John Carroll ZDNet Moderator | 10/17/03
No?  escoles@... | 10/17/03
Investigate for your self  Green Peace | 10/17/03
So which will it be?  John Dulles | 10/16/03
Works for M$, too.  zd-spam | 10/16/03
Sun keeps falling off the horse, or is it thrown  FilledOut | 10/16/03
Just accept the reality  lgmbackman | 10/17/03
Yep, Sun,MS others can be in trouble with current strats  FilledOut | 10/17/03
Which standards?  John Carroll ZDNet Moderator | 10/17/03
Why??  bit byte | 10/17/03
Here's why.  escoles@... | 10/17/03
Ask yourself: Why does IBM love open standards?  escoles@... | 10/17/03
too bad OS's were not like cars  lmaxwell | 10/19/03

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