Bruce Sterling on Open Source

This came out in July, but it’s so wonderful it deserves a good read. Viridian Note 00325: Open Source Speech

The older Bill gets, the uglier he gets. He’s a guy riding a white horse, that turned into a runaway bronco bull, that turned into a scaly crocodile, and now, it is turning into some kind of diseased revenant. It’s like the Steed of the Nazgul, those black, flying zombie horses that explode when exposed to fresh water. That’s what Microsoft is like now. These guys, these Nazgul… They used to be kings. They were originally human beings, they had wives and children and futures, they had their own little nations to govern and manage. But then there was the One Ring – One Ring to Rule Them All. One. And they couldn’t resist. And they gave in.