Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again) To : comp.programming From : Randy Howard Date : Thu Sep 22 2005 07:37 am MSCHAEF.COM wrote (in article ): > In article , > Scott Moore wrote: >> Guys, this thread is never going to end. >> >> To the software communists: > > Sorry, this is late and might well be out of context. But... > > Open source has some real benefits, even in a capitalist economy: I don't recall a single person arguing otherwise, so I don't understand why you are arguing at length against a position that hasn't been presented, or presented so poorly that it doesn't bear remembering. > * OSS allows a market to form around suppport for software > rather than the software itself so? Great chocolate cookies allow people to sell cookies, and doctors to perform more bypass operations. Markets form and dissolve all the time. If OSS allows some people to make money, that's great. If taking proprietary source against the will of the author allows someone to make money, with or without pretending that it's open source in the process, that's not great. > * OSS ensures that software can be developed/maintained as > long as the market will pay the costs. If you have the money, you can ensure that closed source software will be maintained too. You just may not like the number. Nevermind that there is a lot of open source code floating around that isn't worth maintaining. (I'm not saying that there isn't a lot of 'good' OSS code out there too). > * OSS is particularly beneficial in education, where the > whole point (almost) is open dissimination of information. Seems berkeley figured out a way to handle that a /long/ time ago. Without restricting people downstream in any meaningful way, btw. > * OSS provides creative outlets for lots of otherwise under > employed developers. So does a bicycle, or even podcasting. :-) > * Because product sales don't drive development, OSS provides > a good platform for more 'experimental' types of software. And that's what the world post-Microsoft really needs, even more experimental software. LOL. I'd like to find some that is NOT experimental for a change. Oh wait, I already did. It comes on this neat little DVD with "OS X" written on it. > There's nothing (yet) legally that keeps OSS and Closed Source from > both being viable models. True. One is a lot more viable than the other if you want to actually make a living, but both have their uses. > There are only a few people that are for OSS-only, but a hybrid software > marketplace is likely to achieve much broader acceptance. One might argue that it already has. >> Sure, people steal software all the time. > > Theft is bad. I used to think that was generally accepted outside of gangs, politicians, prisons and the UN. After this thread, I see that it has also been lost on a portion of otherwise sentient programmers. >> But they don't do >> it because they feel its their moral right. They do it because they *CAN*. > > That's exactly the kind of reasoning that could drive open source 'out of > business'. Closed source only is as bad as open source only. No, I think society is going to collapse from the weight of catering to the "I want what you have because it's not fair" people. Actually giving debit cards to people that were recently looting and killing each other is a symptom that our government isn't even going to try and control the population anymore, it costs them votes. At some point, there will be a dogfight between the "I earn it myself" and the "I steal it myself" crowd, and we'll just have to wait and see how easy it is for someone to steal a loaded gun from somebody that bought it and knows how to use it. All the rest is just warmup for the big party to be named later. :-) -- Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR) .