The ABCDE example brings up an interesting side-issue--standards. The value of the alphabet is in the fact that everyone uses it (a common standard). This brings to mind Adobe's Acrobat format. They made it open and provided a free (as in beer) reader. Now it is the standard format for distributing electronic documents.
Sun do the same with Java (the Java runtime environment, SDK and even the Forte IDE are all free downloads)--all in the interests of promoting a standard. So there are cases where sharing ABCDE can be very profitable indeed (for a company that is not a monopoly... that's why MS Word's file format is not openly published). But this really depends on what ABCDE *is*. Martin Polley Technical Communicator http://www.surf-com.com/ Tel: (+972) (4) 9095-732 Mobile: (053) 864-280 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 9:28 AM To: Ely Levy Cc: linuxers, inc Subject: Re: knesset meeting on open source EL>> well think of it this way, some company spend 1000$ in testing to EL>> find out that ABDCFGHE is the best order to put the letters EL>> together then some kid comes and see it. and say oh cool! lets make EL>> a free software which does the same. Very good. So the company can choose or to hide the secret of ABCDE, thus losing part of the profits for it one of other way, or publish it and try to benefit from it some other way or never start researching ABCDE at all. EL>> this mean that the programers won't get payed for the hours of work EL>> they invested not only in programing but also in design. Well, if there's no way to benefit from it and all you seek is benefit - you definitely shouldn't start research ABCDE. Somehow in reality it comes out that every worthy idea has some way to benefit from it even without demanding large sums of money from everybody thinking along the same lines. EL>> so lets say there is nothing to really support in this program. how EL>> would they pay the programers the modest 20 nis per hour?and how EL>> would they get thier 1000$ back? They won't. Just as the guy who found a proof of Fermat theorem didn't get $1000 neither 20 NIS per hour for that from everybody who uses it. If they don't like it - they can sell used cars instead. Life's a bitch. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] \/ There shall be counsels taken Stanislav Malyshev /\ Stronger than Morgul-spells phone +972-50-624945 /\ JRRT LotR. whois:!SM8333 ================================================================= 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] ================================================================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]
