November 21, 2019

Two Bits echoes of the dot-com bubble

Raymond’s papers channeled the frustration of an entire generation of Free Software hackers who may or may not have shared Stallman’s dogmatic philosophical stance, but who nonetheless wanted to participate in the creation of Free Software. Raymond’s paper, the Netscape announcement, and the Freeware Summit all played into a palpable anxiety: that in the midst of the single largest creation of paper wealth in U.S. history, those being enriched through Free Software and the Internet were not those who built it, who maintained it, or who got it.

— Christopher M. Kelty, Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software, page 110

Eric Raymond, founder of the Open Source Initiative, is an avowed libertarian.

O’Reilly’s Freeware Summit put wind in the sails of the newly coined “open source” and nascent Open Source Initiative.

Netscape’s announcement gave the world Mozilla.