True, but there is also another side to the story. What about the end users, who will _save_ money by using free software. Corporations spend massive amounts of money on buggy, insecure software. If the software was free, all this money could be saved, and the employees could be paid more (or more could be hired).
I am not rabidly against charging for software, but in many cases free software can make a lot of sense. If a company chose to write a decent OS (BeOS and OS/2 come to mind) with decent software, I would consider using them. Microsoft on the other hand does not compete on quality, it competes on marketing and lock-in. On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 10:57:25 +0900, Doug Lerner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On a day-to-day basis, if you want to have a working economy, where > people can support themselves then, for sure, it makes more sense to > compensate labor and effort which can be attributed. In other words, pay > the programmers who create programs. > > The compensation to society for providing the environment is paid in taxes. > > doug > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): > > >Doug Lerner wrote: > >> There is a huge difference between an idea and an instance of putting the > >> idea to use. > > > >And which is more valuable, or more worthy of being compensated (for)? > > > >Randy Kramer > > > >Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? > >Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com -- Sridhar Dhanapalan "I've always liked penguins, and when I was in Canberra a few years ago we went to the local zoo with Andrew Tridgell (of samba fame). There they had a ferocious penguin that bit me and infected me with a little known disease called penguinitis. Penguinitis makes you stay awake at nights just thinking about penguins and feeling great love towards them. So when Linux needed a mascot, the first thing that came into my mind was this picture of the majestic penguin, and the rest is history." -- Linus Torvalds
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
