Re: <nettime> Free Software as Collaborative Text

[Florian Cramer <paragram@gmx.net>]

Am Wed, 20.Sep.2000 um 12:56:05 -0400 schrieb Ronda Hauben:

> Good to see an effort to look at the history of the Internet and 
> the connection with Free Software.

And thank you very much for your valuable corrections! I will apply your
bugfixes ASAP.

> I thoguht the bbs culture also supported the spread of a free software
> in the 1980s.

The BBS culture I know from here (Germany) was rather commercial and
inclined towards Warez. Most BBSs were run against subscription fees and
frequently charged additional fees for their download areas. The software
available on them were DOS, Amiga or Atari Shareware/Freeware binaries.
Still in the early 1990s (i.e. between 1990 and 1993), the GNU, BSD
&c. software was available in the academic computer networks
(EARN/Bitnet w/ Internet gateway at the university where I first went
online).

Florian

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