On 2003.07.03 22:52 Shannon Roddy wrote: > Brad N Bendily wrote: > .... > > As much as you folks hear me bash M$ I am sure that you will be > surprised to hear me say this. I really don't think that it is a war of > open source versus closed source. I tend to agree more with Eric > Raymond, rather than Richard Stallman. I think that commercial and open > source should co-exist. I personally despise M$ and feel that they are > evil blood sucking leeches on the tech industry, however I do not feel > that way about most other commercial software companies. I will just as > quickly buy a piece of software that is closed if it suits my purposes > and is priced fairly. In fact I have purchased a PHP IDE that was very > useful for me. > > My differences with M$ are more about their business practices and their > perversion of standards and interoperability. .... > > ....
I think Stallman got it right and he does not disagree much with you. All free software started on non-free operating systems and they were all a reaction to software owners trying to exert undue control over their users. A firm that's reasonable today can be bought out by someone who's not reasonable tomorrow, like SCO. It's in everyone's long term interest to adopt free software replacements and make them better than their closed source counterparts. Stallman only recently switched his personal site from BSD to Linux. His refusal to use non-free video and audio editing software probably saves him lots of work and heartache he does not need. The cartoon character of the raving mad monk is mostly an invention of those who are opposed to free software. His actual writings and speeches make sense and I doubt he'd recommend the use of software that would cause a business to fail. The move to free software will no more eliminate commercial software companies than publishing laws eliminates law firms or medical texts eliminates hospitals. Practical software companies will adopt free software and earn their living by implementing it for people. The threat we here from M$ and the RIAA, that without closed source and copyrights there would be no "quality" software or music, is empty. Today we have entirely free operating systems that work better than their closed source counterparts. People will continue to program, sing and dance long after their respective industries have gotten over their early history hangovers. The only thing that's going to be eliminated is the obsolete closed source marketing model and all the abuse it enables. There will always be a need for people who can fix bugs and make software meet people's needs. Bad laws are the only thing that can stop free software from surpassing it's non-free counterparts in quality. Abuse of patents and the DMCA's non-circumvention clause are the only means M$ has to keep free software from inter-operating with their own. Palladium is the only hope Microsoft has of preventing mass defections from their software. The outcome of the war is not in doubt, people will always do what's most practical in the end. The only questions are how unAmerican our laws will become and how long will it last before people understand.
