Open source and class distinctions
Jill Walker is moving (or has moved) her blog from Movable Type to Wordpress. I admire that because it means some extra work, new knowledge and a change of habits. I am planning to do the same for the same IMPORTANT REASON: Wordpress software is an active participant of the Web Standards and Open Source Initiative.
My other reason is solidarity. I shared the worries of some of my friends and colleagues from Latin America and Africa. For them is not so easy to afford the new Movable Type software. Do people know that hosting alone is much more expensive in "Thirld World" countries that in the "Western World of Opulence and Honey"? Just to mention another one of the many Internet Access Barriers?
Wordpress should consider this. And if in the future they want or need to charge for their software, they should remember that not everybody in this planet is "white, male, rich and famous" :-) as some bloggers and developers seem to assume ;-)
Solidarity with others means adhering to the mission of Internet's most biting WaSP!
posted by OjO al Texto at Wednesday, June 02, 2004
2 Comments:
Loic: I am not exagerating about income possibilities for the mayority of people in the so called "Third World" countries. Statistically it is a fact.
But that is not my point. Correct me if I am wrong. What I am saying in this post is that the new version of MT (which was announced as paid) is expensive for many people (not all) in poor countries (and I will add here that also for some of the not so poor in the US and Europe).
If it is true, as you say, that the new version of MT is still available at no charge for personal use, I have not checked my facts. But that is not a case of exaggeration.
Matt:
Thanks for your comment because it explains something that I did not know. I learned about GPL(General Public License) only today, via Wikipedia. The GPL (or better called GNU)license is recognized as an Open Source license. Therefore a particular "popular license for free software"
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