Path: utzoo!telly!philmtl!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Stallman's attitude
Message-ID: <1889@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 7 Dec 89 18:29:21 GMT
References: <8041@stiatl.UUCP> <17799@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 34
Reply-exos:@crdgw1:To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)

In article <17799@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> hugo@griggs (Peter Su) writes:

| 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.

  Do note that the support for GNU is not free, unless you are a
hobbyist. The time you spend on software cost your company money. Are
you aware that Michael Tiemann, author of gc++, is forming a company
which will sell support for GNU products, fix bugs, add features, and
the stuff which you could do youself if you work for free? Going price
for support is about $100k/year.

  The point is that when people demand support someone will sell it,
when people think a product cost too much they won't buy it. The free
market works nicely, and without anyone telling us how we "must" do
things for the common good. If FSF wants to give away software, great!
If people see it as an alternative to commercial software the price of
commercial software will come down. That's the way it should work. It's
the idea of telling someone that they are not allowed to sell their work
which I don't buy... if there is no way to make money writing software
we are going to need more rich people who can afford to write it for
nothing, and there aren't many out there.

-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon