8 p.m. Cloud City time on January 23 and 4 a.m. Silicon Valley time on January 23. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

While Du Qiu was thinking about it in the small hall of the Children's Palace, on the other side of the ocean, at Netscape's headquarters in Mountain View, Silicon Valley, there were four programmers who had just stayed up late to finish their work, sitting or lying in a simple and cluttered lounge, discussing the four articles he had published.

One of them was a guy with long blue shawl hair, a small half shaved off the right side, revealing a bare head, and a pair of high leather boots on his feet, he didn't look like a coder at all, more like a rock star, this guy was named Jamie Gavinsky, one of the main developers of the Scape-Navigator browser, and one of the top hackers and programmers in the world"JWZ" is as well-known as Richard Stallman's "RMS".

Jamie Gavinsky is a big fan of free software, and he saw four of Du Qiu's articles shortly after they were posted on the Internet, and then recommended them to his colleagues in the company, sitting in a chair with a half-nibbled apple, and said: "I like these articles, especially the first and second articles, which are very rigorous, logical, and feasible, and I think that after the development of the Linux version of the Navigator browser, an open source version should be released in the form of a CDDL license." ”

"If you do that, the investment bank managers on Wall Street will kill you. ”

"Wall Street investment banking managers probably don't even know what Linux is. ”

"They may not know it, but they absolutely hate the word free. ”

"Hey, Scott, have you read this article? Open source doesn't mean free. The only female programmer among the four accentuated her tone, separating "open-source" from "free", she was a little exhausted, reclining on a sofa, holding a bottle of soda, and lazily said: "I like the metaphor of the cathedral and the bazaar, do you know how tiring it is to be a software testing engineer? Checking thousands or even tens of thousands of lines of code every day, every line, many times twice, oh God! Before you released it last month, I was going blind. ”

She took a sip of her drink and continued, "It's fascinating to have enough people see the source code and bugs won't be hidden. Microsoft has hundreds of full-time software testing engineers, and Linux doesn't have any, but Linux can run as stably as DOS, and if the company releases Navigator as an open source, my workload will be greatly reduced, and I just need to put together those bug fixes. ”

The guy she called Scott was a big fat man, wearing glasses and a thick beard, and he sat in front of the TV while playing games, and said: "Of course I have read those articles, but the people on Wall Street have certainly not read them, and even if they do, they can't understand them, those guys are all murdered paranoiacs, and they want to lock all the valuable things in the world in the vault, and then install dozens of layers of security doors outside, in their eyes, open source software is as ridiculous as spilling money on the road and letting pedestrians pick it up." ”

"Didn't the third article talk about the business side? I think it's very convincing that open source software can make money just as well. ”

"It's not convincing in theory, there has to be real examples, and Jim plans to take the company public this year, and he, Mark, and the investors don't want to see any risk before the IPO. Scott finished a game, put down the controller, picked up the donut next to him, took a bite and said a little vaguely: "After Bill Gates released the closed-source DOS, he quickly became a billionaire, and Linus has released open source Linux for more than 4 years, and now he is just a poor student in Helsinki, Linux is cool, but it doesn't make money, things that don't make money, Wall Street doesn't like it." ”

Jamie Gavinsky threw away the apple cores, put his boots in a cardboard box, hugged the back of his head with both hands, and after a moment of silence, said, "Maybe we can ask the authors of these articles to come and talk." ”

Behind Scott, there was a man resting in an ergonomic chair, his name was Michael Toy, he was tall, looked like an NBA basketball player, one of the earliest employees of Netscape, and the director of the Navigator browser development department, who had not spoken just now, and then said: "In fact, I wrote an email to the Chinese yesterday at noon, hoping that he would come to Mountain View at our expense." ”

"Michael, you're such a nice guy. The female programmer, Tara, an employee of Netscape's code testing department, rolled over and sat up and asked, "Did you reply to that un2758?"

"Not yet. I asked a Chinese friend, and he said that in a few days it will be the Spring Festival, which is the most important traditional festival in China, just like our Christmas, but it lasts for a long time, about half a month, so even if un2758 is willing to come to Mountain View, it will have to wait until the end of February or March. ”

"As long as you're willing to come. Tara took another sip of her drink, and then said with some gossip: "UN2758, this ID is very strange, it should have some special meaning, right?"

"Some people in the newsgroup say it's a politically charged ID, UN is the abbreviation for the United Nations, and 2758 is the number of a resolution. Michael turned the back of his chair and glanced at the three people in the room before explaining: "The number of the resolution on China's return to the United Nations in 1971." ”

"So, could those four articles be released by a Chinese government department?"

"Maybe, maybe not, very few people in China have access to the Internet, we don't know anything about it. ”

"If it was a government department, it would have been published in Beijing, but according to the IP information I tracked, those articles came from a quantum physics institute in Cloud City, China. Jamie Gavinsky scratched his finger in the air a few times and guessed: "I have seen the map, Cloud City is in Sanjiang Province in China, the geographical location is somewhat similar to our Kentucky or Indiana in the United States, it is a relatively remote place, maybe he is just a university professor or a student, and he wants to show that he is a patriot with this ID." ”

"Whoever he is, it would be nice if he could accept the invitation and make a trip to Mountain View. Michael Toy was a little worried, and said: "I am very concerned about the sentence in the third article, which says that in the age of the Internet, if any product can find a profit model other than direct sales, then there must be a free competitor that can compete with that product." The navigator browser is released as shareware, what do we do if a free competitor emerges in the future?"

Although he stayed up all night writing code, Jamie Gavinsky was still very clear-headed, and said bluntly: "It's either free or it's slowly dying." ”

"I don't know if I'll die, but if your development department writes code that's as concise and standardized as 7-zip, I won't die until I'm about 50 years old. Tara stood up, deepened her waist, and said, "I'm going home to sleep, good night everyone." ”

……

After returning home after the party was over, Du Qiu made a phone call to Chen Dayou at 10 o'clock as agreed yesterday, and learned the invitation message sent by Netscape.

Netscape was one of the most important promoters of the open source software movement in the early days, but that was after the defeat of Microsoft in 1997, and in 1995, Netscape was like a rising sun, shining brightly, and was one of the most high-profile IT companies in Silicon Valley and even the world, similar to Google in 2004.

Isn't your butterfly wings flapping a little too fast......

"Did you say anything specific in the email?"

"No, it's just that I'm interested in your article and want you to go to them for an internal presentation. If the American IT industry in 1995 is a train, then China is probably still a wheelbarrow, both the technical level and the scale of the industry are far behind the other party, so the atmosphere of admiring the foreign is very strong, Chen Dayou is very excited, said: "Du Qiu, notify me before you go, I will be a pawn for you, go to Netscape to have a good visit." ”

"I have terrible English, I can't give a speech, and now I am a jobless vagrant, and I don't have a company to sponsor me, so it's hard to get a visa. You can help me reply with some words of thanks first, and then decide whether to go or not when I return to Cloud City after the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. ”

"If you can't speak English, you can find a translator, and with an invitation letter from Netscape, it shouldn't be difficult to get a business visa. Chen Dayou persuaded a few words, and then asked, "What time is your train tomorrow?"

"Half past ten in the morning. ”

"I'm going back to the city tomorrow and I'll get you those printed mails by 9 o'clock. ”

"Thank you. ”

After Du Qiu hung up the phone, he was about to go to bed, but when he saw that the light was still on in the master bedroom, he walked to the door and looked, and found that his mother was sitting at the head of the bed and playing a sweater, while Lin Jinyan was already asleep, curled up like a little pig and lying beside her.

"Sister, haven't rested yet?"

"I'll sleep later, I'm not sleepy yet, you can go to sleep first." ”

After Du Qiu hesitated for a moment, he felt that it was better to explain the matter clearly before returning to his hometown, so he closed the door of the room, walked to the edge of the bed and sat down, and said frankly: "Sister, my brother-in-law told me that the two of you are going to divorce. ”

Du Chunhua was a little surprised, looked up at him, and then continued to lower his head to hit the sweater, and asked, "What did he say?"

He said that the fate is over, the love is still there, and he will still be friends in the future. ”

Du Chunhua stopped playing the sweater, sat on the pillow for a while, and then said softly: "Dawei is actually not bad, he and I have never really quarreled since we got married, but the two of us have too many different temperaments, personalities and hobbies, and we can't always say anything together, what I asked him to do, he never disobeyed, but he always didn't do as I wanted, so there was often friction." ”

"Didn't I tell you last time, before Jin Yan was born, he and I lived in the small red building of Yunda, and the house rented at that time was only a little bigger than Su Wenxiu's office, less than 50 square meters, the two of them were in the room, they could touch each other when they raised their hands, and they lived together for more than half a year, but they couldn't find a common language, and many times they couldn't speak ten sentences all day, even if they spoke, they were all kinds of nonsense such as eating and drinking. ”

Du Chunhua said as he spoke, with a hint of remembrance on his face, but he quickly relented, shook his head slightly, and continued: " If it is placed in the era of our parents and our parents, it doesn't matter if there is no common language, at that time there was a shortage of materials, and it was enough for husband and wife to live together, but now the times are different, rich in materials, worry-free food and clothing, and must pursue spiritual enjoyment, I and Dawei are tied together, although they can't talk about hurting each other, but they have ruined each other's youth and feelings, so after Jin Yan was born, I asked him to go out to find a lover by himself, don't follow me to death. ”

Du Qiu was shocked by his mother's open-mindedness, and he didn't know what to say, so he paused for a few seconds before he said dryly: "Isn't this fair?"

"There's nothing unfair about it, I told him, if I meet the right person, I will divorce him, and if I don't meet the right person, then I will be a lady of the palace for the rest of my life. ”

"And you're in it now?"

"Not yet. Du Chunhua looked at Du Qiu's face, as if admiring the most precious treasure in the world, and said slowly: "On the night you came back, I decided to revise the previous agreement and divorce Dawei as soon as possible." ”

Messing around, it turns out that I am the real trigger for the divorce?

I knew that the two of you were so chic and had already made an agreement, so why did I bother with it a few days ago......

Du Qiu was surprised and annoyed, touched his cheeks with both hands, and asked, "Why?"

"Stupid! Because a single woman is better looking for a little white face than a married woman, and the sooner you divorce, the better, while you are still young. Du Chunhua chuckled, looked down at Lin Jinyan, afraid of waking him up, and then said seriously: "Because you are back, our family will have the backbone in the future, and our father's idea of inheriting the family has also been taken over, and you will bear it after the storm, my sister is not afraid, my sister is also tired, and now I have to pursue my own happiness." ”

Du Qiu saw that his mother's smile was very calm, not only did he not have much sadness, but he felt a kind of relief and relief, so he completely relieved his heart and said with a smile: "When I go home, I will make a military order with our father, and in the future, I will find him ten or eight daughters-in-law, and give birth to a bunch of grandchildren so that he can hold him every day." ”

"That's the best. Hey, why don't I weave a few words out of red wool on your vest? ”

"What word?"

"Quality stallion, free breeding. ”

Du Qiu fled in the wilderness.