Steve Dekorte wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 3 Dec 1998, Dwight Hughes wrote:
> > A comparison I like to use is that open source is to closed source as
> > science was to alchemy. Science is built by sharing knowledge and
> > discoveries openly so the work of anyone can be built on by everyone
> > else -- alchemists hoarded their knowledge and discoveries, each to
> > himself - his knowledge dying with him, so each generation started anew,
> > and no one got very far. When products or their companies die they take
> > many person-years of knowledge and discoveries down the drain with them,
> > which gets laborously reinvented to a greater or lesser degree of skill
> > again and again and again.
> 
> That's the down side, the up side is that people will pay you to work on
> closed source software. Now if software was handled like drug patents...

And the down side is that you have to work on closed source software :-b
-- and please, don't use "software" and "patents" in the same sentence.

-- Dwight