By Joey Gardiner, 16 March 2000 00:15
NEWS Open source guru, Eric Raymond, has endorsed the commercialisation of Linux. In an exclusive video interview with Silicon.com, Raymond, president of the Open Source Initiative, said the continuing process of open source development should not be threatened by Linux fanatics who resent anyone making money out of it. He said: "The issue is not whether Linux is free or not, the issue is not whether money changes hands. The issue is whether the 'peer review' process works. Are we giving up on secrecy to get reliability and good performance?" Raymond said he was happy for companies to charge for Linux as long as open source principles of development were adhered to. He also praised commercial Linux companies such as Red Hat and Suse for providing a "wonderful" interface between the world of the hacker and the world of big business. The peer review process, advocated by Raymond in his 1997 essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", encourages the development of software through open investigation, letting other developers judge the success of new code. Raymond maintains this is the key to creating the best software. He also predicted the end of the proprietary method of developing software and claimed it wasn't capable of achieving the high level of complexity demanded by today's applications. You can see the Agenda Setters interview with Eric Raymond in Silicon.com's Java/Developer Channel (http://wwww.silicon.com/a36367 ).
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