On 05/12/06, Luke Dicken <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Well, I deleted it to write the other. Basically my position is "I make the software, therefore I make the rules".
Since we want to live in a good society, we find behaviors of individuals that are harmful to everyone else, and make them not-cool, or even illegal. Consider the phrase "I make the car, therefore I make the rules about how fast I drive it." or even "I make the crack, therefore I make the rules."
At the end of the day, software is a product
I've just written about this in reply to someone else - I hope you can reply to those comments in regards to this.
Mandating that software should be free is a naieve position that doesn't take a number of factors into account. From what I read of your initial email for example, you can charge for your software but then the person who buys it has the right to redistribute it. And how does original creator get compensated fairly based on the actual number of people using the product?
"Compensation" implies repaying some kind of damages. I don't understand what the damages are - perhaps you can explain them? :-) I'm also not sure why the number of people using a program is relevant. I think the real issue is how can programmers gain an income from their work. The majority of software written is not available to the public, but it used privately. Most programmers earn plenty of income this way, independently on a freelance basis or on a salary from a large corporation. When software is available to the public, the public's rights trump the whims of developers. If this is still unclear, please read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html
Business models built on "Faith in human nature" tend to be... Y'know... Non-existant.
My faith in business models that sue their customers is non-existent :-) -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
