I think it killed the performance on a lot of the systems in the Labs for years because everyone had their own copy of it, but it wasn't being shared, and so they wasted huge amounts of memory back when memory was expensive.
I figure that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code.
Early on, when software was developed by computer scientists, just people working with computers, people passed around software because that was how you got computers to do things.
'Creative Commons' is the self-congratulatory name of a self-congratulatory movement. Somewhat like kibbutz on the Internet, the idea is to write programs - 'free ware' - and distribute them without charge.
Also, because schools must teach the spirit of goodwill, the habit of helping others around you, every class should have this rule: students, if you bring software to class you may not keep it for yourself.
I want people to use Perl. I want to be a positive ingredient of the world and make my American history. So, whatever it takes to give away my software and get it used, that's great.
I have really become a huge believer in the power of open source.
I consider that the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way.
We are a game developer ourselves, and we built everything we need for our games. We share everything we built, including our game engine.
I think the wonderful thing about vi is that it has such a good market share because we gave it away.
