The following was written yesterday morning, mostly as I was driving to work thinking about the recent Netscape open-source release (see .) A few of the edges are still a little rough. And of course now I have to ``filk'' the GPL... ============================== filk here =========================== /begin{song}{DIYpl3} /subtitle{Do It Yourself patch level 3} /notice{Lyrics /copyright/ 1998 Stephen Savitzky. All rights reserved. /ttto{Do It Yourself,} /copyright/ Bill Sutton.} /category{computers, humor} /key{C} /created{19980401} /license{Released under the FGPL} C I went to buy some software, and they said six hundred bucks F C G7 For some bloated cruft from Microsoft, now that price really sucks C So I looked out on the network, and, my friends, I'm here to say F C G7 C That people write great software and then give the code away. /begin{refrain} C Oh, Oracle, Sun and Microsoft, Novell and SAP F C G7 Make bloated buggy cruftware that they license for a fee. C F* They make big bucks from software so they don't want me to say F C G7 C That software's always better when you give the code away. /end{refrain} First I had to have a kernel just to make my software run This Finnish guy named Linus wrote a great one just for fun, Multi-user, multitasking, virtual memory as well, And best of all it's free because it's under GPL. Next, compilers and utilities were what I had to get -- The Free Software Foundation has the best ones on the Net. They say that GNU's Not Unix, and I know this must be true 'Cause the tech support is faster and the software's better too. Then I had to have an interface with windows, fonts and mice And high-speed graphics over local networks would be nice. The old X Window System got its start at MIT; If it's good enough for Unix then it's good enough for me. Now I had to use the World Wide Web, well that's always been cheap; Picking lynx, perl and apache didn't cost me any sleep. Netscape's long been losing market share, but just sit back and wait: It's been free and on the Internet since April '98. Now I have my system running, not a byte was off the shelf; It rarely breaks and when it does I fix the code myself. It's stable, clean and elegant, and lightning fast as well, And it doesn't cost a nickel, so Bill Gates can go to hell. /end{song} -- / Steve Savitzky \ 1997 Pegasus Award winner: best science song--+ /__ / h:steve@starport.com \ http://www.starport.com/people/steve/ V /___ \ w:steve@rsv.ricoh.com \ http://www.starport.com/suites/Starport/Filk \___ \_ Kids' page: MOVED ---> http://www.starport.com/places/forKids/ _______\__