Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 12:40:27 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Robert Clark <res03db2@gte.net> Cc: Robert Clark <res03db2@gte.net>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, Trent Waddington <s337240@student.uq.edu.au>, Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org>, David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stallman stalls again Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20010306122926.046aacb0@localhost> In-Reply-To: <20010306100616.B45802@darkstar.gte.net> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010306011539.045faaa0@localhost> <20010304130501.A32152@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010303132348.04461420@localhost> <Pine.OSF.4.30.0103040637000.3518-100000@student.uq.edu.au> <20010304130501.A32152@lpt.ens.fr> <20010305124910.A44291@darkstar.gte.net> <4.3.2.7.2.20010306011539.045faaa0@localhost>
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At 11:06 AM 3/6/2001, Robert Clark wrote: >And there is a message in there somewhere. Is Mr Stallman a >promoter? No. Stallman has no counterpart in the Grateful Dead scenario. >In that analogy, would Linus be like Jerry? No, because Jerry did not give away his work. He merely allowed some rather limited free reproduction of it. >I don't begrudge RedHat or Walnut Creek their living. But >their promotion isn't what I'm interested in. They don't really have a counterpart in the Grateful Dead scenario either. There is no for-profit distribution of Grateful Dead bootlegs, because the fans trade pretty much at cost and dealers can't compete with that. >Someone who is financially responsible needs to setup as a >nonprofit micropayment broker. > >In the same way that I can toss money into a street performers >hat, it would be nice to be able to be able to contribute >small amounts of money to small projects. This has been tried. It's called "ShareWare." >As long as there is no alternative to the "feast or famine" >ways of doing business, its going to a black and white world. It's not that black and white at all. Many businesses are, for example, giving away low-end versions of products and services and charging for high-end ones. Others are trying to implement strategies that include open source. (The ones that are succeeding are the ones that don't use the GPL, incidentally. The GPL is -- and is intended to be -- poisonous to for-profit businesses. This is why I don't hold out much hope of Eazel ever being profitable.... Andy Hertzfeld, who is technically brilliant but has not had good success starting businesses, has embraced the GPL without realizing that it will deprive him of a chance to be compensated for his hard (and, in many cases, truly inspired) work. >Commercial companies grabbing everything they can, and open >source refugees moving from inspiration to inspiration. >(Dodging lawsuits all the while.) Sorry, but while your image of open source advocates being "refugees" or "dodging lawsuits" sounds heroic, in fact nothing of the kind is happening. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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