On Mon, Jul 15, 2002, Ely Levy wrote about "Re: knesset meeting on open source": > Well I guess for nadav cross office is not a good example, > after all it' not FS;)
Ely, I was using non-free software for years, from commercial versions of Unix, a C compiler on a Commodore-64 (cost $100), DOS, Windows, Turbo-Pascal, and the list goes on and on. I never used to have anything against commercial software, or even Microsoft software (I even programmed on DOS a lot). But this has gradually changed in the last decade, until I stopped using commercial software altogether about 2 years ago. Why? As commercial software companies (and especially Microsoft) increased their deployment of monopolistic practices, out-of-touch-with-reality pricing schemes, and treating their customers as criminals (I once had program which I had to look in the printed manual every time I used it, for secret codes! See also BSA ads), the more I became disgusted with this whole idea. Using the G.W.F. Hegel's terms, if the commercial software "thesis" had failed, an "anti-thesis" was bound to arise, and indeed it did: free software. In the last decade free software has become a more and more viable alternative, until a few years ago it even surpassed what commercial software had to offer (at least to "hackers"-types like me). Obviously, those who know Hegel's philosophy will know that the dialectic process does not stop there. In the upcoming years we're going to find problems with this anti-thesis (free software) too. Maybe free software is not as secure as we thought; maybe it's not as easy-to-use as we would want; maybe the whole idea will cause thousands of programmers to lose their jobs; and maybe there are other problems with the free software concept that we still haven't thought of. This is why we're going to have to find a "synthesis" (again, using Hegel's terms): a new system that combines the ideas and benefits from both the thesis (commercial software) and the antithesis (free software). > anyhow it's hard making money from programing you think you find a nice > idea try to sell it and then some kids who are still in school or some > company whic doesn't care about money copy your idea only they put it > under GPL. > > no I don't have anything against GPL only against idea leechers. If your "idea" is something that took you 2 hours of brainstorming to come up with, and 1 month to implement (this was very common in the dot-com era!), well, maybe you deserve it if other people "leech" your "idea". But if your idea was how to build a supersonic airliner, worked on by 5,000 people for 10 years, well, I doubt "kids who are still in school" will come along and "leach" your idea. Do you prefer that every product we use will be manufactured by only one company, because the companies will be getting unlimited patent and monopoly rights to protect their "ideas"? -- Nadav Har'El | Monday, Jul 15 2002, 6 Av 5762 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Entropy: Not just a fad, it's the future! http://nadav.harel.org.il | ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
