From owner-freebsd-chat Tue May 23 1:53: 9 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from sj-msg-core-1.cisco.com (sj-msg-core-1.cisco.com [171.71.163.11]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7A66337B53D for ; Tue, 23 May 2000 01:53:07 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jhix@mindspring.com) Received: from mira1.cisco.com (mira1.cisco.com [171.71.212.196]) by sj-msg-core-1.cisco.com (8.9.3/8.9.1) with ESMTP id BAA27583 for ; Tue, 23 May 2000 01:53:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mindspring.com (sjck-dial-gw5-219.cisco.com [10.19.238.220]) by mira1.cisco.com (Mirapoint) with ESMTP id AAL00552; Tue, 23 May 2000 01:53:05 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <392A48AD.2E346279@mindspring.com> Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 02:00:29 -0700 From: W Gerald Hicks X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 4.0-STABLE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The Ethics of Free Software References: <20000521131809.A6546@sharmas.dhs.org> <20000522170335.B94994@azazel.zer0.org> <20000523085510.A5994@physics.iisc.ernet.in> <20000522222438.A11092@sharmas.dhs.org> <20000523114956.A39397@physics.iisc.ernet.in> <20000522234412.A11711@sharmas.dhs.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Arun Sharma wrote: > My personal view - free software is an act of philanthropy, tool for > education, hobby for personal satisfaction and an ego booster for > those who're good at it. > My view is that free software (specifically development tools) are wonderful empowering agents for professional developers. ( I could not care less about mass-appeal :-) Ever had to go begging a clueless pointy-haired type for approval to purchase a C compiler only to be refused? I've actually had this happen and been chastised afterwards for not delivering a dependent project on time. Thank heavens those days are behind us (for the most part). I'd rather see the ego boost thing discounted though. Overdeveloped egos are perhaps one of the most destructive forces in software development today, particularly within the free software movement. -- Jerry Hicks jhix@mindspring.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message