On Tuesday 25 December 2001 19:17, you wrote: > What do people think about free vs commercial software in general? I > myself don't object to commercial software. In fact, I work for a company > that makes very high-quality commercial software with a great, loyal > customer base. > > Surely there is nothing wrong with paying to have software supported and > updated? > > doug > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): > >MAndrakesoft is committed to free software. All the Mandrake Tools are > >licensed under the GNU GEneral Public License and source is available. > > Find another major distro that does that! Nothing wrong with it until it becomes the only game in town, or you have to update at an exorbitant fee every other year. With the open source programs you can see what's going on under the hood, tinker with it , fix it, or if your like me, break it. And you don't have to pay to reinstall it. The argument has always been that you can't make money with free software. What is software? It is a string of letters and symbols that in effect write a formula for a machine to operate from. I submit that folks have been making a comfortable living by selling their services using the formulas necessary to make "air conditioning work", "heating systems", internal combustion engines and on and on. All these things are based on public domain mathematics and formulas, but they are packaged and sold to people who want the benefits but don't have the time, knowledge or skills, or all three to make use of the formulas in a useful or productive manner. Intellectual content is ludicrous because, what the mind of one man can concieve of another can too. Case in point Edison and Tesla. Money and deciet won out. The more intelegent person was Tesla IMHO, but the formulas for the electron flows that were developed are used world wide and are free, and a lot of people make a living using them. Closed source is fine because it gives an edge to someone as a starter, but patent laws and copyright laws need to change, because the closed source community is willing to sue at the drop of a hat when someone comes out with a program or process that looks even remotely like what they do even though the thoughts behind the new process may be totally original to the individual presenting them. So you get a multimillion dollar company suing Joe Schmo and guess who will win, the money every time. "You've stolen my property!" Bah Humbug, ideas are no man's property. MandrakeSoft and some of the others are making a pretty fair run at making money on freesoftware because they are packaging it and presenting it in a manner that someone like me can relate to and finds useful, and they are not charging " make me and my company officers filthy rich" prices. $100 for an upgrade! Fixing something that should never have been broken in the first place! Thievery I call it. This is my own opinion and totally unsolicited by anyone, : ) -- Dennis M. registered linux user # 180842
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