Probably all of us on these lists are familiar with "open source" as a term applied to software. I was surprised recently at a conference (in Washington DC, of course) to learn that the CIA manages an "open source" section -- using the term in a much different way to refer to keeping an eye on publicly-available information (newspapers, TV, etc.). Wikipedia suggests that the intelligence world even has prior use -- dating back at least to a 1992 conference in Washington. By contrast, "The "open source" label came out of a strategy session[3] held at Palo Alto in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator." Followed by Tim O'Reilly's "Open Source Summit" in April 1998. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source#History A friend thinks that the term "open source" may predate 1992, and was originally used in the business world. Similar to the CIA, it referred to making use of publicly available business intelligence. Fascinating how the same term could mean such different things in the computer developer and the intelligence world. Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 You're invited to visit & contribute to the new version of "Updating Cybertimes: It's Time to Bring Our Culture into Cyberspace" http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _____________________________________________________________________