> Well one of the longer and more thought out talkbacks mentioned an unix > CAD program,
Yes, there are some good CAD programs for Unix/Linux which cost money. There are some poor/mediocre ones for free. I guess it's a matter of, as I said, if there is something you need, the value depends on your needs. >and the community as a whole certainly hasn't been shy about > using proprietary gaming software. Same here: there are some great games for free, and some people are willing to pay for., > I can see more than just two sides to this issue. One of which is that if > we're serious about world domination then we want to at least have the > capability to use some proprietary software in a safe and sane manner. Well, some (read RMS) would argue that's a specious argument, since his goal is replace proprietary software with software that isn't. > Another being that we do want to encourage the growth of a commercial > market for open source software AND proprietary software that runs on free > as in speech Operating Systems. For the latter aspect there a couple of > very interesting models that come to mind, There is a large licensing arguement going on most of the time someplace about this. Currently, it's been happening on Linux Security Module mailing list, and spilling into LKML (Linux Kernel Mailing List - it often ends up there...). Again, it usually ends up being the people who want binary only modules because they want to SELL them, versus those who feel binary only is a bad thing in and of itself. Do we really care about proprietary software? Do you really want Microsoft Office on Linux? Or do you want a _free_ (in all senses) 'office' package? If you can get all of your needs met with the open software, who cares if the closed one works. If your goal is world domination, the answer isn't to let the other guys into your side, it's to make your side more attractive as a _replacement_ for their stuff. Note, I have nothing against charging money for support, for service, for cool stuff on top of the rest. If Quake the free version rocks your boat, and you want to buy additional levels for it, rock on... pay someone for them. Pay the developers.... the problem is that most of the software industry isn't about paying the authors, it's paying the retailers, the wholesalers, etc etc. BTW, thanks for bringing up this topic. I'm trying to brainstorm what my 2 Linux talks will be about. One will be Consumer focused, the other Business focused. I'm open to suggestions for both ... Seth > > a. an open source engine, or framework with proprietary artwork/artificial > intelligence; i've seen a few things like pygame and some of the other > gaming projects (like id software) releasing the underlying engine as open > source but allowing apps to be built on top of that engine that are > proprietary. I could see openoffice moving in this direction, which would > benefit both the writers and users of the software. > > b. The open source feature subscription model, where you see an open > source projects core contributors accepting payments to add desired > features which are released as either open (good) or proprietary (not so > good) > > > Seth > > > > translation of above into SethSpeak(tm) : > > > > If I can't apt-get, I don't (usually) apt-want it. > > There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, but I do pretty good at finding > > them. > > Users are Lusers. got root? > > > Ah yeah, (oh grow up :-) > > > >
