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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 14 Dec 1995 04:00:55 GMT
Organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
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mingo@news.siemens.co.at (Ingo Molnar) wrote:
]
] Terry Lambert (terry@lambert.org) wrote:
] : This is not a bad model. Consumers who do not do a proper job
] : of picking the company which they buy from are screwed. This
] : provides a nice, desirable, evolutionary pressure which has the
] : effect of eliminating bad consumers.
]
] This has nothing to do with "being a bad consumer". If you dont have the
] information, how can you make a good decision?? It's much more like russian
] roulette. Currently we are going towards "monopolized information", and
] i just dont like that.
If you don't have the information, you *can't* make a good
decision! This is exaclty the point of difference between a
good and a bad consumer! The bad consumer makes the decision
anyway.
] So what do you do if ... Hitler took over Oracle, and he would
] declare that:
]
] " Oracle as a product is discontinued, because i want it so.
] The source code is already destroyed, all backups are burned.
] No more Oracle!"
]
] a pretty irrealistic, but possible scenario. He has the right to do so, and
] because no source code is published, all the information is lost. And quite
] a few companies would be screwed. If Oracle was GPLed, no such thing would
] be possible.
Well, assuming your example came to pass: as a stockholder or
board memebr of Oracle, a publically held corporation, I'd
fire Hitler and get someone else in there. And if there was
anyone stupid enough to "just follow orders", I'd fire them
too.
] AND dont tell me i'm a bad costumer because i use Oracle!!!
Naw. You're a bad customer because you depend on your SQL
server being oracle instead of just depending on it being
an SQL server (which as a commodity item can be obtained from
other than Oracle). BTW: here I am assuming Oracle isn't
publically held and you stupidly didn't write SQL engine
independent query software, which means you have two marks
against you being a good customer.
] Secrecy is power.
Information is power. Secrecy is a form of centralization of
control of information. So are governments. Why are you
arguing with me instead of attempting to abolish governemnts?
You have yet to prove that this is "a bad thing".
] : Open source code forces licensing and other contractual mechanisms
] : to be used. Otherwise, there is no benefit to being the first
] : to invent anything, since it costs less to copy it from you
] : competitor.
]
] yeah, the interests of "humanity" is not the same as the interests
] of a company.
]
] In a "free source code" model, humanity would be a big "company",
] developing new source (and paying for the costs).
Thank you Karl Marx... "From each according to his ability, to
each according to his need".
Sorry, but your first statement is correct: the interests of
"humanity" *aren't* the same as the interests of a company. Or
a nation, or a state, or a county, or a municipality, or an
individual.
Each are organisms, and each will, as organisms are wont to do,
act in their own self interest.
The trick is to get the self interest of subsidiary organisms
to line up with the encompassing organism... to establish a
symbiotic relationship with the encompassing organism. It's
in the long term best interest of the encompassing organism to
encourage this happening.
It's in my own self interest to continue to be a member of the
organism "all programmers". How is it in my best interest to
be a memebr of "Ingo Molnar's divine pecking order"?
] : Thus there is no mechanism for amortizing developement costs over
] : a product life cycle, and thus there is no money for research
] : and thus we have "putter"'s writing all our code.
] :
] : See why sane people reject the idea?
]
] sane = "people who want to make alot of money" ?
People who want to encourage quality an progress, and see that
in order to do so, one must spend on R&D.
] if you are a developer who invents something new and you keep it secret, you
] have a certain kind of power. The fully egoistic approach: "use it to make
] money". The fully communistic approach: "share it"
]
] I dont like the communistic one, but yours is ways too egoistic :)
]
]
] --
] -- Copyright 1995. Ingo Molnar, mingo@hercules.elte.hu, Microsoft Network is
] prohibited from redistributing this work in any form, in whole or in part
] without license. License to distribute this work is available to Microsoft at
] $500. Transmission without permission constitutes an agreement to these terms.
Why not "share" your opinion with the poor clueless minions
subserviating themselves to the evil Microsoft empire then? 8-).
FYI: I have contributed large amounts of code to various projects
in my time. I just don't think other people should be bludgeoned
into contributing as ell in order to use my contribution. It would
considerably cheapen the value of my gift to give with one hand
and club into submission to my philosphy with the other. I will
generally contribute code any time I see it as "raising the bar"
across the board, and won't contribute it to advantage a single
party: I sell it to cause the advantaged party to be me.
Terry Lambert
terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.