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Date:      Thu, 13 May 1999 10:50:34 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Jamie Bowden <ragnar@sysabend.org>
To:        chat@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   BSD, GPL, the world today. (fwd)
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.990513104700.2143C-100000@beelzebubba.sysabend.org>

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I sent this to hackers originally by mistake.  So I am forwarding it here.
If you see it on hackers, please redirect followups here.

Jamie Bowden

-- 

If we've got to fight over grep, sign me up.  But boggle can go.
	-Ted Faber (on Hasbro's request for removal of /usr/games/boggle)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 10:43:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jamie Bowden <ragnar@sysabend.org>
To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: BSD, GPL, the world today.


I've been doing a little thinking on the whole Proprietary vs. GPL vs. BSD
licensing issue.  Stallman's wrong, Brett's wrong, Gates is wrong, hell 
everyobody's wrong.  

Now that I have your attention, let me continue.  The biggest problem I
see with software today, as an admin (read, bridge between users and
vendors), is the refusal of vendors to take responsibilty for their
products.  Microsoft seems to be the biggest practitioner of this, but
they didn't start it.  

For a free product to offer no warranty of suitability it perfectly
understandable.  For commercial software, it should be totally
unacceptable.  Unfortunately, it's the norm.  Everyday, vendors release
software that's broken in some way or other.  Fine, I know there is no
such thing as bug free software.  The vendor's refusal to fix their
product without 'buying' the upgrade is unacceptable.  Again, Microsoft
seems to be the biggest practitioner of this, and as the largest OS vendor
on the planet, fosters it in others.  How can Caldera, or Ipswitch, or
Oracle guarantee their products whey then run on top of faulty software?
They can't.  Someone with lots of free time and money needs to go after
Gates and company for failure to deliver.  I don't care what the EULA
reads, I don't seriously believe they can knowingly sell and refuse to fix
a faulty product and get away with it anymore than GM can.  Just because
it doesn't result in fiery crashes doesn't make it any better (although,
with MS going after the embedded systems market, even this may not be
true much longer). You lost a relative due to faulty parts, I lost
millions due to faulty software.  Everyone lost.  Everyone is losing.  

FreeBSD, the other BSD's, and Linux all have someone's reputation riding
on them, which seems to be a deciding factor in bugs getting hammered into
the ground as they get found.  Commercial software offers no such public
billboard as to who wrote that horrible bit of code.  It's a shame really.
Microsoft Tech. Support tells you to upgrade, it'll be fixed, while their
fearless leader is simultaneously saying upgrades are for features, not
bug fixes, and that no one would upgrade just to fix bugs.  I think
perhaps he is so lost to the needs of his customers and reality in general
that he can no longer speak for them.  Money will do that.  

Oh well, I suppose I'm done ranting for now.

Jamie Bowden

-- 

If we've got to fight over grep, sign me up.  But boggle can go.
	-Ted Faber (on Hasbro's request for removal of /usr/games/boggle)



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