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>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> 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/
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199707130818.SAA01309>