>
> "free for personal use" isn't the same thing as free software. Many people in the
> community are almost more worried in "free for personal use" software than in
> commercial, proprietary software, because the "free beer vs freedom" message is
> blurred for the end user, who now have more to do with the fate of linux's
let's not take the free beer vs. freedom thing out of context.. i think
eric's point in that famous quote is taht free beer is nice, it isn't
freedom, but free beer beats non-free beer. You cannot have freedom in
every sense of the word, everywhere. someone has to pay the rent. Most
companies who make money off of free software don't, they make money off
of something else and contribute to free software.. photodex is the same..
they give away free beer and dish out a little freedom to go along with
it.. give them a chance.
> expansion than anywhere else. What got GNU/Linux/etc where it is today was the
> openness in which the OS was built and source code could be improved upon many
> times through peer review and contributions, and many, especially those in the old
> school, belive that proprietary free software is just too dangerous, too many
> strings attached, and that it is a blemish on the history-to-date of Linux.
> I'm not saying that free (beer) proprietary software is evil. I'm just saying that
> it can cause problems to those who do not understand the issues and strings that
> are sometimes attached to free proprietaty software.
the main point of sale for photodex is it will help bring windows and mac
users to linux.. windows and mac users are perfectly happy with free
software (beer) and won't care about free software (freedom) for quite
some time. I love the free software concept, I also use lots of
proprietary software,mostly free (beer). Given the choice between an
open-source equivalent (in every way) and non-open source, i'd choose open
source.. i can tinker with it, use compiler optimizations (that I know
really don't make a noticeable change) and other stuff.. but the fact is,
the software is no less useful to me..
CompuPic kicks ass.. it looks good, it works well, and it will be
extremely fast when it is optimized.. It's going to run on so many
platforms you can't even imagine, and dammit those guys deserve a buck or
two for it. They're out to make money, but not to screw the Free Software
community in the process.
Free Beer is good, freedom is better, but I'm sorry, The RMS-ites of the
world have to stop using ESR's quotes because it doesn't fit. Eric
Raymond is much cooler than Stallman for one major reason : he sees the
fact that people actually have to make money off of software once in a
while, and he knows how free and commercial software can co-exist. We
don't now and never will have the utopia of free software that RMS wants
because people are selfish. This is all addressed in the cathedral and
the bazaar, i'm sure you've read it, so i won't rehash just to sound
cool..
later
|--------------------------------------------------
|Justin Ryan
|Developer Relations / Support Associate
|Pacific HiTech / TurboLinux
|http://www.turbolinux.com / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
|WebMaster, PCHelp - http://computers.iwz.com
|[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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