Free Software (was : Re: Linux for small business)

[der.hans]

Am 28. Apr, 2002 schwätzte Tom Achtenberg so:

> I read as much as I could stand of the gnu philosophy.  In essence it says I
> am NOT FREE to own what I create but everyone else is FREE to consume and

It does not say anything about you or the fruits of your labor. It says that
those who choose to use a free software license ( you are apparently one who
won't ) have freely given the use of their code to society and guaranteed
society the freedoms they need with that code to be able to continue work on
it and pass that continued work on to others.

Also, as I stated last night, the authors very explicitly do own the
copyright for their code, thus they do own the code. What they've done,
however, is given *everybody* a license to use that code, to make changes,
to distribute the original code and/or their changes to it. All with the
restrictions that those who use the code honor those same freedoms for
anybody they give the code to *and* that they pass on the copyright info as
well.

http://www.GNU.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

If you feel it is so important that coders get paid for the fruits of
their labor feel free to drop a couple hundred dollars for every GNU/Linux
installation you have to the appropriate distribution(s), don't forget to
send that in annually. Also grant them the right to force you to upgrade
whether you need to or not. Grant them the right to search your home or
business anytime they feel you might have installed software without
notifying them and first begging and groveling for their permission to
do so. Remember to pay them every time you want to report a bug. Grant
them to permission to break into your machines and stop programs at their
discretion. Remind them they can change how they use protocols such that
they are no longer compliant and no longer work with software from other
vendors. Oh and don't forget to get rid of any source code that you might've
collected and remember to not look at any source code that might come your
way.

> take the fruits of my labor without compensating me at all. It reads very
> communistic.   NO THANKS!!!!

I question your understanding of communism. Under a communistic gov't the
gov't makes decisions for you and doesn't allow you to decide your own
future. Free Software guarantees you those same freedoms that communism
takes away. Those freedoms are actually taken away by proprietary software.
Hmm, are corporations the true communists?

I again remind you that this country runs on volunteerism. Do you remember
that Prez Bush just remind everyone that it's a civic duty to volunteer to
help others? That's right, it's a responsibility of citizens in a free,
democratic society.

> as I do not believe I will change your mind and I know you will not change
> mine.

I posted that last night :).

ciao,

der.hans
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