Robert McHenry has a follow-up to last November's article on Wikipedia, which was discussed here.

Judging by the tone of exasperation in his piece, McHenry has felt some hot flames. Speaking as someone who has also expressed skepticism about the Church of Open Source, I feel his pain.

[I]t has something to do with freedom from the taint of money. It has often been noted how many of the "information wants to be free" school of philosophers had the free use of their employers' or universities' computer networks with which to spread their message. No doubt this is simply tactical opportunism. One consequence of this attitude, it would appear, is that my former employment by an organization that publishes an encyclopedia for profit (that is the intention, anyway) has left me permanently defiled. It would be a mistake, I think, to see this attitude as just an aspect of the wider anticorporate, antiglobalist movement. It is less a political stance than an implication of a positive belief in the efficacy of community and collaboration, a belief that is not open to question or testing and so is an element of dogma.

posted by James DeLong @ 10:03 AM | Free Culture Movement

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