On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 9:40 PM, Chris McQuistion <cmcquist...@watkins.edu> wrote: > All this talk about 'free' being possibly bad and having ulterior motives > makes me a little confused. > Isn't Linux and the Free Software movement all about 'free' (as in beer) > just as much as free (as in speech)? > How can the same people that applaud Linux being 'free' give Microsoft a > hard time about giving stuff away for 'free'. (...and I understand that > Microsoft's training/products are not free (as in speech), but they are > being ragged on for being free (as in beer.)) > Seems like an obvious double-standard...
Because when a corporation gives you something, there's always a reason. Microsoft's management has a fiduciary duty to the owners to maximize profit, so their "free" offerings always have an ulterior motive. If they don't, buy a share of stock and sue the management for misuse of funds. Free software, on the other hand, typically has no ulterior motive (an example of free software with an ulterior motive would be Sun buying StarOffice and freeing the source in an effort to harm Microsoft, although it could be argued that Sun gained good will or whatever through that gesture). Usually when people give away software, it's to form a community for everybody to benefit from. That's quite different than a corporation giving something away in order to promote their own business in some way. Michael -- Michael Darrin Chaney, Sr. mdcha...@michaelchaney.com http://www.michaelchaney.com/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to nlug-talk@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to nlug-talk+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en
