At 05:12 AM 10/16/2000 EDT, you wrote:
>I am sorry that you think I have been ignoring that, so I will make my view
>more explicit. I do not think that the fact that some developers are
>volunteers entitles them to dictate to users what they can or cannot have in
>abc. Nobody is forcing them to do the work so presumably they feel it has
>its own rewards even if they are not monetary. I am sure they get great
>satisfaction from exercising their creativity, serving the community, having
>an ego trip or whatever. (At least two of those reasons apply to me.) In
>fact one of the most vociferous arguers does charge for his software.
..which would undoubtedly be directly related to the fact that,
unlike the developers who are working in open source environments like
Linux, those who develop for MS Windows environments have to pay quite
a lot for the compilers. The nominal fees that get passed on to users
help to defray the cost of the proprietary development tools.
A good many Windows ports of free software have similar fees
associated with them, for the same reason. Check out http://www.MySql/
if you need confirmation of this pattern. And I would repeat, in para-
phrase, if you want volunteer work done, battering the volunteers is
counterproductive.
>If I have gone on at rather tedious length at times it is to try hack
through
>what seems to be a grim determination to misunderstand what I am saying.
>Even you recently implied that I wanted to get rid of the tonic /mode
system,
>which I have never said, and that I wanted to restrict choice when I want to
>extend it.
True. But you started that discussion by saying you didn't under-
stand what the mode was even in the K: field for, then inexorably pro-
gressed to demanding that those of us who do use the modal information
repeatedly justify that use, to the nth degree. In my experience, people
don't usually approach a topic that way unless they're trying to tear it
down. There was no need to attack the current structure if all you wanted
to do was *add* another choice to it.
It is the "We like it the way it is" school who want to restrict
>choice and yet you don't criticise them for it.
It has a lot to do with presentation. Each of them presents their
own view without trying to reinterpret each other for the rest of the
group in the process. In other words, I can read and understand Phil's,
Laurie's [and my own] posts without having you continually paraphrase and
explain to us what they meant. Please give us the room to think for our-
selves.. even those of us you disagree with on certain points.
Wendy
To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
