Comments on: 6 Open Letters That Changed the World

By: Wes Hopper

Wes Hopper — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:16:00 +0000

In addition to, or maybe in spite of, the above comments, let me thank you for bringing the above letters to our attention. It’s an important reminder of the power of one person to change the course of history. I challenge all the readers to the task of deciding – if you were going to write an open letter, what would it say?

By: nayajhen

nayajhen — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:18:00 +0000

That is complete nonsense. Only one or two of them actually “Changed the World”. Don’t bandy about the terms so easily. Half of those only affected the US and US is by no means the WORLD! If you are talking about letters that changed the world. What about Gandhi’s letters while in jail, or Nelson Mandela’s or Karl Marx or Adolf Hitler or the many famous men and women all the way from hundreds of years ago that really did influence and change the world. Do some due diligence please.

By: Jim Van Zandt

Jim Van Zandt — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:10:00 +0000

I think the Declaration of Independence should have been mentioned.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:02:00 +0000

Ted, Chris’ comment doesn’t say that he excluded religious letters, only that he may later develop more posts that specifically focus on religious letters.

By: Ted

Ted — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:45:00 +0000

Ted,

I would consider your message and the tone of your writing to be unnecessarily assholish in nature.

So let’s see…you had a choice whether to read this and even if you had a complaint you could have said it slightly more politely. You should have just admitted to yourself that you’re a jackass, put a comma in the wrong place in your last sentence (the one before this), and moved on.

By: Ted Tschopp

Ted Tschopp — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:49:00 +0000

Chris,

I would consider the letter to a group of clergymen and a letter to the idea of a creator being made out of spaghetti to be religious in nature.

So lets see… 2 out of 6 or 1/3 of the letters proposed have a religious context. You should have just admitted your made a mistake, in excluding the 95 thesis or in not thinking about to include them, and moved on.

By: patrick

patrick — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:38:00 +0000

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

By: ayeroxor

ayeroxor — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:39:00 +0000

“But there was no effective way to copy-protect software in those days”

You are remiss to imply that there is as of yet an effective way to copy-protect software.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:19:00 +0000

I would say the open source revolution has made Bill Gate’s letter sound silly. In fact, many people do spend a lot of time to produce software in order to give it away.

By: Chris Higgins

Chris Higgins — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:11:00 +0000

Deb — yes, actually I considered Martin Luther’s theses as well as major segments of the Bible itself…but I had to fit the article into six items for our countdown/countup, so I had to whittle down the number of letters.

Certainly Martin Luther’s open letter did change the world!

If I do expand this article, there’ll be a whole segment on religious open letters — for example, Corinthians. And I feel like there’s a rich vein here, so I probably will be posting a follow-up in the new year.