The effect of applying this statement to business in general is astounding to me: working for profit "breeds a lack of caring for the actual project." I might be persuaded on that one, but it would have been more correct to say "working for profit breeds an intense focus on solving customer problems." If you're working for the project itself, maybe Free Software is the way to go.
Should all businesses then charge only for material cost and "make money" off of providing support? Where's the incentive for a company (as opposed to an individual) to invest in researching new ideas? A cure for cancer isn't going to come out of someone's garage, nor will a company invest billions developing one if they're expected to give it away. Same problem with health care -- "free" health care for everyone (paid for by taxes) will only decrease the quality of that care as the incentive to focus on the patient decreases. I like the ideal of Free Software far better than just Open Source. Additionally, getting rid of software "licenses" would allow the purchaser of a piece of software to do with it what they want within the bounds of normal copyright law. And it doesn't necessarily mean that I must get it for free. I think we need to find a balance: paying for some software should be a normal part of life, and copyright/patent law will guarantee that ideas aren't lost or abused. --Dan On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 22:37:52 -0600, "Steve Dibb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: <snip> > The opposite side of this whole scenario is building programs with a > profit-only approach. I tend to think that this naturally breeds a lack > of caring for the actual project, as I tend to do my work solely to get > paid, instead of having a backend agenda to help out the community with > my development. I'm driven to succeed because I need to get paid, and > then I need to protect my investment. Not only am I sweating and > stressing now, but already I'm putting a lot into my future that I'll > have to continue to support it with promotion, and protect it from > piracy. Plus, the only guarantee that I can give people that my program > is what they want is my word only, which is obviously biased from a > marketing perspective. In the end, it's all for me, and ends up only > for me, and if the program is unused, does badly, then it's lost to the > world, and I sit at home with no job, alone with my satisfaction that > nobody can have the source code but me. > > My commercial perspective on the matter may be a little harsh, but I > think it's pretty obvious that any company working solely for-profit > cannot at the same time proactively care about their customers, as they > say they do. ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
