I apologize for this in advance for this is going to be a major soapbox speech.
I think that programs like ICQ, that may or not have great functionality, are inappropriate as a general solution to the problem (whatever it is) unless the source or the protocol specification is freely made available. If a company wants to make a product and sell it, and people buy it, that's fine with me. But that is a proprietary solution and it doesn't really fit in with the whole philosophy of Linux, GNU software, the Internet (protocol development), etc. I think that the development of the Internet protocol suite is a fabulous achievement of mankind (I'm serious...) and the method by which it was accomplished is even more fantastic. A lot of researchers (etc.), some of which were funded by DARPA, built the protocol suite and particularly the applications associated with IP, such as telnet, FTP, finger, etc., etc., in a open fashion. What one needed to get an application/protocol accepted was a specification (though some of these are pretty light) and working source code that could be examined, tested, or modified by an interested user community. If the protocol/application had utility, it was adopted by people and became a "standard" in the sense that it was now important for OS suites to have an implementation of the protocol/ application because users needed it. That's how most if not all of the applications associated with the IP suite were originally developed. Some had limited utility and didn't make the cut, so to speak, but it was the user community that really made that decision. Unix, because of its researchy like flavor, the availability of BSD (and other) source code, and maybe a little because of Sun Microsystems (who has given away a tremendouse amount of software technology that is take for granted today, and no I don't work there) was closely tied to the development of the IP suite. But it only ran on expensive workstations and so wasn't really available to everyman/woman. But now that Linux (and personal computers) are so capable, this whole philosophy is available to just about anybody, along with participation in the development process. I think it is the openess of the IP suite that has allowed computers with ANY OS to have these "standard" applications implemented for them. What OS doesn't have an FTP, telnet, web browser, etc.,etc. client/server implemented for them? The company I work for just spent a tremendous amount of money changing our email system to Novell GroupWise. Some of us asked why the company would actually pay for a capability that had free implementations that met all open standards that was available for all OSs (in use anyway). Our MIS people just looked at us like we were crazy. "Of course you must pay for software. Who would ever trust free or public domain software?" Of course nearly all of our MIS people are Microsoft/Novell desciples and don't have the Unix/Linux experience of public software. The thing that really irritated me was that with this sort of monolithic application, I don't have the freedom to use the mail user agent I want to use, I must use GroupWise. That is, I think, the beauty of the Unix philosophy, that well known (I almost said specified) interfaces between applications allow one to hook applications together in a manner that is user specified, rather than vendor specified. So, I would hate to see the continuation of a proprietary solution to a particular problem by the free software development population of the general public. It goes against nearly every basic part of the Linux/Unix/IP philosopy and in the end denies us functionality and choice. Again, I apologize for the speech. -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
