"At that time, I had never met Richard in person, but
in our email interactions, he'd been inflexible and
unwilling to engage in dialogue. I wanted to make sure
the GNU tradition was represented at the meeting, so I
invited John Gilmore and Michael Tiemann, whom I knew
personally, and whom I knew were passionate about the
value of the GPL but seemed more willing to engage in a
frank back-and-forth about the strengths and weaknesses
of the various free software projects and traditions.
Given all the later brouhaha, I do wish I'd invited
Richard as well, but I certainly don't think that my
failure to do so should be interpreted as a lack of
respect for the GNU Project or for Richard personally."
Snub or no snub, both O'Reilly and Raymond say the term
"open source" won over just enough summit-goers to
qualify as a success. The attendees shared ideas and
experiences and brainstormed on how to improve free
software's image. Of key concern was how to point out
the successes of free software, particularly in the
realm of Internet infrastructure, as opposed to playing
up the GNU/Linux challenge to Microsoft Windows.
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