--- Steve O'Hara-Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 20:31:35 -0800 (PST) > Danial Thom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > You don't have a G-d given right to use other > > people's work without paying a fee for it. > > No but having paid for it I expect to be able > to use it without > unreasonable restrictions. I also expect to be > able to make backups so > that I don't have to pay for it again when the > media wears out. Again, another arrogant and ignorant stance. Somehow paying $99. for thousands of hours worth of work entitles you to manipulate the code in any way you want until the end of time? You're not "buying" the code. You don't own it. You're just "paying" for a license to use the code, at a significantly discounted price. Its expected, as part of the cheap price, that you'll need to buy another copy when Microsoft gets around to releasing another OS or you need to upgrade your hardware. Most companies survive on residuals more than they do finding new customers. Trying to keep this in the context of proprietary hardware drivers, there's a business case to be made to release your specs and let other people write drivers (in which case you're risking someone writing a bad driver (can you say template programmer Bill Paul?)) and blaming your hardware for problems, or you can invest corporate man hours and dollars in writing a really good driver and developing hardware that is a unique performer and guarantee that you are a leader in a particular market without having to worry that the Acme corp of Taiwan will make some piece of crap chip that has the same interface as yours and take away your market share. This happened to Western Digital back in the 80s when they had the best ethernet card on the planet and the taiwanese stole their concept and their designs and much of their market share with clone boards. Now they sell hard drives and not much else. NVIDA selected the second approach, and I'm sure that they are very glad they did; and I doubt that they care that the 24 guys running DFLY BSD have to use something else. If you want vendors to support your OS, then make your OS significant. Otherwise you're stuck with companies with mediocre products who are desparate to find someone to use them. DT __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
