Cory Doctorow made a similar connection between science and alchemy a while ago: "FLOSS .. is better for the same reason that science is better than alchemy. B

Cory Doctorow made a similar connection between science and alchemy a while ago: "FLOSS .. is better for the same reason that science is better than alchemy. Back before we had science we had alchemy, a lot like science except alchemists never told anyone else what they thought they'd learned and so they were prey to the most common human frailty which is self deception, which is how how alchemists discovered in the hardest way possible that you shouldn't drink mercury, and when alchemists started telling each other what they thought they'd learned, and subjecting themselves to adversarial peer review, and they started publishing their source they turned something base into something noble, they turned superstition into science and created the enlightenment, and FLOSS is everywhere because it continues the enlightenment tradition." Source: [1:40 to 2:20] http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/oscon-tx/public/content/how-you-got-here http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/oscon-tx/public/content...