[NTLUG:Discuss] Free vs $$$ software

[Charles Jacobus]

Can we simplify all this? Free enterprise & competition will set the prices
over time, and in general prices will go down with effective competition.
Let's just keep competetive efforts free from control by a few major
players. OK?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Edwards" <greg at nas-inet.com>
To: <discuss at ntlug.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2001 12:51 PM
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Free vs $$$ software - was: RMS's Speach


> Being a professional Software Engineer as well as a proponent of
> Linux/Open Source this subject has made for some mixed feelings with
> me.  I think there is plenty of room for both software that is free and
> software that costs users real dollars.  Actually in my opinion, if it
> weren't for non free software we wouldn't have systems anywhere near as
> sophisticated or stable as we have today.
>
> I would make the distinction about where a boundry between free and cost
> might be valid would be at the OS and its' support tools.  I think it is
> completely reasonable to expect to be able to buy a computer fully
> equiped with an OS (of the buyers choice) and ready to go.  I have not
> problem with the idea of having to pay for word processors, DBMS,
> accounting packages, games, etc.  However, the tools that allow me to
> run those applications should be included as standard equipment.  You
> wouldn't buy a car that didn't include an engine would you?
>
> I also think that the tools necessary to provide communications between
> systems should be included.  Software such as web servers, network
> servers, mail servers, DNS, ftp, browsers, etc., are standard equipment
> type items.
>
> Basically anything that is part of the infrastructure should be standard
> equipment and provided through OEM distribution channels.  Anything that
> is part of making the use of a computer specific to the owners choice is
> optional and therefore (I think) open to add on costs.
>
> The point that Stallman and others that tout purely free software miss
> is that without a financial incentive software would be built by
> hobbiests only.  I'm not trying to knock the contributions of the non
> professional programmers and/or hackers to the world of computing and
> the open source movement, but that contribution is only a drop in a very
> large bucket.
>
> The people that spend day in and day out designing, developing, testing,
> and redesiging are the people that have moved this world from using
> notches on a stick to Quicken.  These are the same people that have
> figured out how to get us from 300 baud to well over T3 communication
> rates.  These are also the same people that built UNIX which made the
> POSIX standard possible which gave a guy named Linus a road map for a
> little project to keep him off the streets at night:)
>
> I'm one of those people that spend day in and day out in the trenches of
> this industry.  I'll be honest,  even though I love what I do, if nobody
> was willing to pay me to do it I would have to do something else.  The
> bad of a free market system is that as long as the system requires me to
> pay the bills I have to go where the money is.  The good of a free
> market system is that if your good at what you do, and there is a demand
> for what you do, the money is there for you to do it.  I don't have the
> time to do this as a hobby and at the same time be able to gain even 1%
> of the knowledge and experience as what I gain doing it as a job.
>
> The bottom line is that if nobody paid for software then nobody would
> pay people like me to do R&D or software development.  If nobody would
> pay people like me then there'd be no technology revolution.  If there
> were no technology revolution then RMS wouldn't have anything to talk
> about:)
>
> --
> Greg Edwards
> New Age Software, Inc.
> http://www.nas-inet.com
> _______________________________________________
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