"Bob Young" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted [EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:43:12 -0700:
>> > I fail to see that it really makes much of a difference whether Jane >> > Avgusr is dependent on a Linux kernel developer or on an engineer >> > working at nVidia. >> >> Because *no one* is dependent on the linux kernel developers. You can >> make the needed changes. If you don't have the ability to, > > As is the case for 99.99 percent of the population. That may be, but 99.99 percent of the population isn't me. (FWIW that's something I'm sure both they and I am very glad about! Can you imagine billions of Duncans around? <shudder> =8^) As I said in a different reply, "slaveryware" vs. "freedomware" is simply the point in my experience I've come to. I don't expect others to have come to the same point, or necessarily find my terms represent their experience. All I'm doing is fairly representing my own experience, calling things exactly as I see them, unvarnished with "political correctness". >> Someone *has* to pay for the cost of maintaining and improving software. >> That's economic fact. NVidia says you have to pay *them* to improve >> their software. Linux kernel developers says you can pay *anyone with >> the skills* (or use your own time) to improve the software. Clearly, >> you have more options (and are thus more free) with free software. > > If I'm not doing it myself, I see little difference whether I pay one > entity, or pay another. It's a bit of a side point compared to the above, but if you don't see a difference between having to pay one entity and being able to make a choice between thousands or millions of such entities, I can only hope that all your aches and pains can ever be cured by your choice of acetaminophen, aspirin, etc one can buy at the local drug, grocer, or convenience store, or even simply by taking it easy a few hours, and that you never face the hard choice of paying for a single supplier patented new drug to save your life or that of a loved one, or buying food and/or paying rent. The fact of the matter is, many suppliers gives you vastly more freedom/flexibility than a single supplier, and with that freedom/flexibility not coincidentally comes a rather drastic drop in cost, yet the suppliers still seem to stay n business. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman -- gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list
