Is there a bright future for open software projects?

[Kyler Laird]

jeremy at alum.mit.edu (Jeremy Hylton) writes:

>I've spoken with several people who said that DARPA new exactly
>what it was doing when it supported the TCP/IP code developed at
>Berkeley.  The goal was to get an implementation that was not
>encumbered by royalties so that it would be widely used.

I've been within whispering distance of people who seem to
believe that *licensing* is the way to ensure wide usage
and public enjoyment of IP developments.  I mention this
because it seems so ludicrous to me that I never would have
come up with it on my own.

>Some
>big company had already produced an encumbered version, and that
>was considered unacceptable.

"But why reinvent the [Denver-booted] wheel?!"

Surely there's someone on Telegraph Avenue selling T-shirts
with a more creative version of "Berkeley: creators of the
Internet...We won't let *that* happen again!" 

--kyler