Linux for small business

[der.hans]

Am 28. Apr, 2002 schwätzte Tom Achtenberg so:

> I don't follow your analogy at all.  Free Software Movement seems more to
> have the attitude of "I shouldn't have to pay for anything" where shareware

Free Software isn't about not paying. In fact 'no cost' is not one of the
Free Software guarantees. The Free Software guarantees, do, however, make it
difficult to sell software. Selling support is still quite possible.

> at least was "try it and if you like it pay for it."  One has a chance of
> putting food on a programmers table and one does not.  Just like the

If, however, programmers are willing to donate their programs, that's up
to them. Shareware is a marketing gimmick. Free Software is about giving
back to the community. People have different reasons for donating time and
services. That could be a very long, ranting thread if we go there :).

> communes of the 60's, FSM sounds good but is not realistic or practical.

GNU/Linux has more than proven it's realistic. Why else would m$ marketing
be bashing it so much? As for practical. From the perspective of using the
software I don't see how proprietary software is practical. I want to be
able to fix bugs I encounter. I do not want to be held hostage. As a
customer I don't want to have to allow the company I'm buying stuff from to
come search my business whenever they feel like.

Do you want Del Monte to come search your pantry to make sure you paid
for every can of vegetables you have in your house? Oh, but wait, you
don't necessarily store all your vegetables in the pantry, better check
the kitchen, garage, bedroom, etc. Oh, let's not forget what you might've
recently consumed...

You decide what price you put on your freedoms. If they don't matter to you,
then by all means use proprietary software. If they do matter to you, then
make sure you don't support proprietary software. Those are the extremes,
but there are levels of grey in there. It's up to each of us to decide what
shade of grey is correct for our own situation.

There are places that I don't see Free Software likely to replace
proprietary software ( TurboTax being an example ), but in most cases I
don't see how I would replace Free Software with proprietary software.

ciao,

der.hans
-- 
#  https://www.LuftHans.com/
# "Communications without intelligence is noise;
# Intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
# Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC