Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?

[John Cornelius]

Les Mikesell wrote:
> Gordon Messmer wrote:
>>
>> Our entire history of science and engineering is Open.
>
> Getting way off topic here, but I think you are way too optimistic in 
> your view of this.  A huge part of science and engineering work has 
> historically been done for military purposes and kept closed for as 
> long as possible - tcp/ip being both an example and something of an 
> exception in terms of subsequent openness.
I disagree somewhat. When ARPA sponsored the ARPANET the information was 
both public and available. It had to be in order to get universities to 
round it out and prove the concepts.

That does not mean, of course, that there is not a secret network 
running today that has features that you and I would die for but there 
is an amazing amount of information available if you know where to look. 
Besides, very few things are as fragile as technical advantages and it 
takes only a bright idea to gain one more.

John Cornelius