Facing the facts:
For the first time in years i think i'm starting to see some light at the end
of the tunnel (maybe it's just a train coming right at me to run me over. I
don't know.), I think that i might have something that i can afford and like
to do, and make a modest living with. What you're saying is that it's immoral
for me to do so.
What if i have to cover for expenses like transportation or payed interviews
and the donations ain't enough to cover it? Then, i would have to redirect my
time and efforts to something else so that i could make ends meet. My project
would die before it even starts. That's what i meant by "wasting my work".
Unfortunately that's the kind of world we live in. It should be different, it
could be different (that's the great tragedy), but unfortunately it's not. I
know we all should work hard to make things different, but in the meantime,
while the world doesn't change, we all need to make a living.
I've tried hard to follow the "be the change you want to see in the world"
principle and it has only hurt me. I'm not saying that i have given up
trying, but i think it wouldn't hurt the world if i sold PDF files with some
sort of DRM. If people don't like that sort of thing they always have the
option not to buy my stuff. I'm not forcing anything on anyone.
I want people to read my work and make some money for a living. You talk
about user's freedom but you expect them to be polite and willingly adhere to
the licensing rules - i know that doesn't happen often in the real world. It
looks like people that want to implement DRM are always supposed to be evil
and that people that are against DRM are always supposed to be polite and
honest.
I wouldn't mind if people printed my emagazine because that would cost them
more than the price that i would be asking for it online! I just worry about
someone buying one copy and then upload it somewhere on the Internet and
everybody else would have a free copy.
Publicity is something that could make things more balanced, but i don't know
how much companies will want to publicize on my magazine. I also intend to
freely publicize free software in my magazine, but it seems awkward to do so
in a DRM protected document... I just want to make a modest living with
something i think i can actually do and that i like to do.
Many people don't donate to things that they usually would because they can't
afford to (like i haven't donated anything to Trisquel yet because i am going
trough some very, very hard times); i wouldn't mind if those people had a
free copy of my work, but the problem is that if they have a free copy and
they share it, then those who could actually pay for it aren't going to do so
because they already have it for free.
I'm really lost in this one...
