This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by James Robertson. Original Post: Open Source in Politics Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/rssBlogView.xml Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by James Robertson Latest Posts From Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants

Wouldn't it be great if Dean and Clark went after Viacom, ClearChannel and Time-Warner, instead of the tiny companies that make blogging and social networking tools.

I find myself hoping they get their asses kicked, hard. I don't expect much of Bush, but I doubt seriously that he would undermine the mostly American software industry by competing with it with free software. Makes the Dems' pitch about exporting American high-tech jobs to India fairly hollow (NH is a high-tech state, so it has been an issue).

There's some self interest in that, as Userland was originally Dave's company. This is all part of the general push/pull between open source efforts and commercial software. Clearly, a political campaign doesn't want to spend money on technology; like a movie, a campaign is a short-lived business, and it doesn't need to spend money on ancillary things. On the other hand, I can see where companies can get upset over this; we face open source alternatives to Cincom Smalltalk all the time.

Where I part company from Dave on this one is simple - companies like Userland (et. al.) should have considered approaching the various campaigns with free usage in exchange for publicity deals. There wasn't going to be license money from any campaign - but there could easily have been free PR. That in turn could have meant license revenue from others who saw the product being promoted that way. This wasn't a failed business opportunity; it was a missed marketing opportunity