Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!apple!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Software, development & copyrights Message-ID: <5401@ficc.uu.net> Date: 1 Aug 89 12:17:43 GMT References: <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <26832@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 94 In article <26832@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer) writes: > Peter, you have this habit of reading straw men into what other people > write, without regarding what they actually wrote. Funny, I have the same impression about you. > I didn't say that _only_ people who sell explictily software would > have problems with copyleft. I said that over 90% of the programmers > in the world aren't in a position where selling the software is > needed. I know. I have not in any way misrepresented your position. I just do not believe this statement to be factual. I have tried to explain that there are many ways in which software can be part of a product, without being explicitly "sold". A company that had to give the source to this software away is at a competitive disadvantage. Even if I grant you your point, I think I can demonstrate that it is not relevant. There is a ghenuine need for the products that I speak of. Such products as 747s, passenger cars, microwave ovens, and energy management systems are necessary. To compete effectively if you manufacture these products you need to protect the source to your embedded software. Therefore there are cases where hoarding software is necessary. > Um, first of all, most software (by raw line count, not by > package/program count) in the world isn't sold - it's PA. Most of the software in the world is written in Cobol on IBM mainframes and minicomputers. The vast majority of this code is wasted and duplicated effort, even if it is PD. Hardly a shining example for the GNU side. > Did I say it wouldn't? Bu claiming that "hoarding software" is "evil and rude", and urging that everyone give away their software... Yes. > Of course, I don't think that most such people would be hurt. After > all, if they bundle the software, they have a dongle. They don't have > a problem unless they buy the dongle from someone else who could go > into competition with them, as the patents & copyrights on the > _dongle_ should do the trick. Having people steal the software to use it is NOT the only way that people can be hurt by giving away their source. Again, CDC would have relatively little trouble finding ways to use such information about Ferranti's source code to gain an unfair competitive advantage. > Though if there's a big enough market, someone will reverse-engineer > the dongle. But the same is true of the software. The fact that CDC has their own systems isn't relevant. The fact that people can reverse-engineer the software is similarly not relevant. > <> It's just that the FSF wants things to be best for society, > Right. After all, we wouldn't _ever_ want to benefit by somebody > else's good will, would we? Your education is lacking. That is a paraphrase of a relatively famous quote. My education is, to a lesser extent, lacking... I can't recall who said it. My brain is trying to tell me it was Mark Twain. The intent of the quote is that someone else's idea of what is good for you may not actually match either what is really good for you... or even your idea. > That's why you don't trust people's good will, you trust their their > self-interest. Wonderful. A reasonable, meaningful statement. One that I can accept. > It works better. And you yourself pointed out that > Stallman's self-interest is in creating a programmers utopia. His idea of a programmer's utopia, where all his good buddies from the MIT AI lab are back working on cool software in the MIT AI lab, making just enough to get along so they can keep working on cool software. Not my idea of a programmer's utopia. Programmers are also people. We have families and expenses and mundane ambitions. Some of us would like to own our own houses in reasonably nice parts of town. Programming is not an end in and of itself. No, we would not like his idea of a utopia at all. -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | "The sentence I am now Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' | writing is the sentence Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today? 'U` | you are now reading"