Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 18:18:37 +1000 From: David Nugent <davidn@labs.usn.blaze.net.au> To: "Joel N. Weber II" <devnull@gnu.ai.mit.edu> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: My opinion about freebsd (fwd) Message-ID: <199707130818.SAA01309@labs.usn.blaze.net.au> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 13 Jul 1997 02:33:33 -0400." <199707130633.CAA20588@psilocin.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
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> I wish everything could work by anarchy.
And so do I. Actually, a "free market" is the epitome of an 'anarchy',
or at least, an organised one. :-)
> But I think money will always
> be dominant. I don't think we can get free food the way we have
> free software, because software is inherently easy to copy, and
> restirctions that make software non-free are artificial. By
> contrast, food production has always been time-consuming.
Ouch. And developing software is not? Time for a reality check.
There's probably not much difference in the production rates either
way. The "artificial" restrictions are restrictions in distribution
(which is easy with software), but there are very real costs and
overheads involved in production of software per se. It isn't magic
- it isn't all done with mirrors.
Apologies if I'm coming across too strongly here, but the issue
passes a little too close to home. There is, I agree, a particular
aura about software that the end user tends to disregard completely
the issues involved about what's going on under the hood, and therefore
somehow mentally devalue it. Nor should they have to know what's going
on inside there, except - which is relevent in this thread - sometimes
they run a system where they might be required to know a bit more. Like
FreeBSD.
But the tendancy is invariably to consider software "cheap" and the
hardware the only serious concern. But this isn't the case.
When you consider the time spent by various people - professionals and
hobbyists alike - on code for {Free,Open,Net}BSD, and appreciate the
time they've spent on it and know that I'm getting it at no direct
cost to myself, then you can truely appeciate what the product is.
Regards,
David
--
David Nugent - Unique Computing Pty Ltd - Melbourne, Australia
Voice +61-3-9791-9547 Data/BBS +61-3-9792-3507 3:632/348@fidonet
davidn@freebsd.org davidn@blaze.net.au http://www.blaze.net.au/~davidn/
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