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From: hugo@griggs.dartmouth.edu (Peter Su)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Stallman's attitude
Message-ID: <17799@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 7 Dec 89 14:12:45 GMT
References: <8041@stiatl.UUCP>
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: hugo@griggs (Peter Su)
Organization: Dartmouth College
Lines: 62

In article <8041@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes:
>Why should software be free? Why not hardware? Cars? Telephone calls?
>TV? Money? Or anything and everyhting else? Why shouldn't all food be
>a labor of love? Are farmers mass murderers for not giving away their
>crops because someone out there is hungry?
>
>Mr. Stallman has declared legal war on everyone who writes software
>and thinks they should be able to charge for it, but I have yet to

From where I sit, its not why should software be free, but why should
current software companies get away with the their ridiculous
licensing policies.

Think about it, here I am, putting down say, $400 on Microsoft Word,
or Excel, or Wordperfect or the latest C compiler ($4000 if I'm buying
UNIX software).  I open the box, and what is there?

1) Some "documentation"...you know what I mean.
2) A disk, maybe a tape, total value: $15
3) Some bits on the disk that allow the software to run on my machine.
4) A bogus license which says:
   "You have just paid a huge wad of cash for this software.  We do
not claim that it works, we do not claim that it is useful, we don't
even claim that it does anything that our advertising says it does.
You cannot copy it, you can't fix it yourself if it breaks, you can't
look inside and see how it works (no source code see)."

Now, contrast this with what I get when I buy a TV.

1) Some "documentation"
2) A big metal box with actual parts in it.  Something "material."
3) A (gasp!) WARRANTY...like, the company actually thinks this TV will
work, and will do so for between one and five years!
4) If I open it up, I can in principle figure out how it works, fix it
myself, take it apart, put it back together.  Normal people can't do
this, that's what dealers are for.

My point is this:  If you software guys expect me to pay my money for
software it had better have a god damn warranty on it, it had better
have source code, and it had better have decent support.  Not this
namby pamby phone support bullshit, but someone who can come out and
fix the bugs, who knows how the box works, who has seen source code
once or twice in his/her life.  Otherwise, if you want to give me
software sans warranty, with all those restrictions, what right do YOU
have to expect ME to PAY for it?  You couldn't give it to me free.

Now, while I agree with what RMS is doing in principle, I am not quite
as radical as he is.  I am perfectly willing to allow folks to
charge for their software, and restrict its distribution as long as
the product they sell, and the support they give is comparable to what
is available in other industries in terms of reliability and quality.
Right now, commercial software is about as reliable as a balsa wood
bridge spanning the Hudson river.

To sum up, I'm rooting for RMS, and hope that I can support what he is
doing.  Just the fact that the source code is available is enough for
me to overlook the "restrictions" that he places on its distribution.
I like user-maintainable software, I'm funny that way.

Cheers,
Pete
hugo@sunapee.dartmouth.edu