Sometimes we humans tend to order, sometimes to disorder. Our confusion throws up mighty questions; “How does the ruler rule freedom?” and “How does science stand with religion?”
Joseph Priestley embodies these confusions. The discoverer of carbonated water and the founder of British Unitarianism, his celebration of Bastille Day two years after the event on 14 July 1791 provoked rioting. When King George III finally sent in the troops, he said:
I cannot but feel better pleased that Priestley is the sufferer for the doctrines he and his party have instilled, and that the people see them in their true light.
Forced ultimately to Pennsylvania, Priestley became a minor player in the growing Jefferson/Adams division, itself provoked by concerns about French revolutionary tendencies. Jefferson’s defeat of Adams in the 1800 presidential election rested in part on the unpopularity of the Alien and Sedition Acts, signed into law by Adams on 14 July 1898.
The Sedition Act expired on 3 March 1801 and on 21 March, the now president Jefferson wrote to Priestley. After noting “yours is one of the few lives precious to mankind” he said:
… it is with heartfelt satisfaction that, in the first moment of my public action, I can hail you with welcome to our land, tender to you the homage of it’s respect & esteem, cover you under the protection of those laws which were made for the wise & the good like you, and disclaim the legitimacy of that libel on legislation which under the form of a law was for sometime placed among them.
Today, the web is our own confusing battleground of rule and freedom. When we speak of open source, many of us will think of Linux. The developer of Linux once said in an interview “If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened.” The reasons to celebrate open source are many, and it is fitting that one is Bastille Day 1992, when 386BSD 0.1 was released:
