On Wednesday 28 December 2005 13:29, Dinesh Shah wrote: > Hi Terrence, > > On Wed, 2005-12-28 at 10:49, JTD wrote: > > Precisely these reasons hinder the widespread use of foss. The > > big difference is that foss is not a Company that has to think of > > cash infusion today to fund tomorrows market or worry about > > someone else's business going phut. All you have to do is focus > > on technology. > > I don't agree with the above reasoning. If any technology, however > superior, can not reach the people, I would consider it useless and > worthless.
Partly true or false - it depends what point in time u make the observation and what is your definition of "value and worthiness". So in the 1990s gnu and linux was actually "worthless" to most. And today your statement is less true or false - most products have to vend their way thru a host of middlemen before reaching the "people". So the product is worthless because middlemen like music companies (or theatre owners) cannot get their "value" out of a product. Every argument can spin both ways. > Remember technology is for the benefit of mankind not > the other way round. It is really sad that many people just talk of > technology for technology's sack. like the MIT lab where personal computing started? Or some pokey place with two college kids making apples from ICs? or a few developers writing the next revolution? > > The idea behind FOSS is to make technology available and accessible > FREELY to people. The attitude of some people in FOSS, technology > for the technology's sack, is hurting the FOSS, apart from many > other reasons. I think not. Since it is foss those feeling hurt can pick the code and fork it with pleasure - X.org, uclinux, rtlinux. As long as the technology is FOSS someone can always pick up broken threads and weave it into a useful blanket. It is when the only "value" that the market attaches to "products" is monetary that things get badly skewed. And i will quickly contradict myself by saying that monetary value is what business has to think about mostly - hence i decided not to pursue (as fax) the great tech that i created in the distant past. I however used all of the expertise in countless other projects, earned good money and more important had and continue to have lots of fun doing so. In short as long as there is freedom all the contradictory forces will resolve them selves over time. Skew it with legislation like DRM or patent laws in the guise of helping the inventor and u get screwed. -- rgds jtd -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
