On Friday 07 November 2003 13:27, Ron Johnson wrote: > On Fri, 2003-11-07 at 11:45, Jonathan Dowland wrote: > > On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 11:01:58AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: > > > As in "proprietary, closed-source apps"? > > > > > > Well, that depends on if you see them as a "problem", or something > > > that you prefer not to use. <snip> > > Personally I haven't really made my mind up about prioprietry apps, and > > whether RMS is right or not. However, the success of Linux is widely > > attributed to the open-source development model, so I can't really see > > the future of Linux throwing it away. > > I'm all for the open-source development model. However, we must > respect that some companies want to keep their source closed, and > still sell to the Linux market.
I'm fascinated with this question from a practical perspective. The RMS model works when producers can afford to present a gift or when a community organizes to accomplish a goal (barn-raising, for example). Let's say you're a barn builder. People need barns and are used to buying barns now-a-days. You go around to the community and suggest a community barn-raising project. Everyone agrees but you soon find out the participants are barn users and not barn builders. The community is more than happy to use the barn you give them for free if you'll do it for free. You talk to your family and they remind you that they'll starve if you build barns for free. So you offer to build barns for a price and you find that people are willing to buy the barns because they don't want to learn barn-building. The quilting bee in the church basement, on the other hand, is a well-oiled machine because there are enough quilters that can do the work and enjoy it and they all get quilts out of the deal which is good because it gets chilly at night around there. So they turn up regularly to quilt and talk trash about the people that are not quilters - especially that barn builder that first said he was going to build a free barn for everybody in town but later changed his mind and how he should just get a barn-raising group together and everybody should help to build barns for everone in the group just like they do with quilts. I can relate to the barn builder in my own endeavors. I sure like that quilt on my bed too. -- Mike Mueller 324881 (08/20/2003) Make clockwise circles with your right foot. Now use your right hand to draw the number "6" in the air. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
