Free Association
By Michael Swaine
Free doesn't always mean free, as the Free Software Foundation
likes to point out. Free verse is often copyrighted, free love risky, free
agents expensive, and free speech about free-range beef can get you hauled
into court in Texas.
Netscape Navigator is free now (no cost to the consumer), but
it's also free in that you can copy Netscape's Communicator code and build
on it. This is definitely a bold and possibly a brilliant move on Netscape's
part. The entire software-development community is invited to participate
in the Bazaarification of Communicator's code (see www.mozilla.org). Catch the free spirit at the Mozilla site, but don't think that you're free to turn in Marc Andreessen's code as your homework assignment. Computer science
instructors have begun using plagiarism-catching software to compare student
programs against often-copied code on the Net, thwarting the freeloaders.
Free has positive connotations. Al Gore might have had better
luck with "information freeway" than "information superhighway." But even
on free asphalt, Microsoft would charge for Slate. TANSTAAFL and
not everything is free on the freeway.
L.A. is a great big freeway, but Mayor Riordan wants it-or more precisely,
its concentration of high-tech companies-to be known henceforth as Digital
Coast. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. Well, he's free to call it that, and the rest
of us are free to ignore him.
Al Gore's boss wants to keep the Net a duty-free zone.
