Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!escher From: escher@Apple.COM (Michael Crawford) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm Subject: Re: NFS on the Mac Message-ID: <8921@goofy.Apple.COM> Date: 28 Jun 90 22:26:22 GMT References: <6692@umd5.umd.edu> <855@mdavcr.UUCP> <268138A0.6F2B@intercon.com> <19724.2681dd74@merrimack.edu> <26867CE4.183F@intercon.com> <19780.2688cc11@merrimack.edu> <268A351B.3EEC@intercon.com> Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA Lines: 77 In article <268A351B.3EEC@intercon.com> you write: > >If I'm overzealous about anything, it's probably in my impatience with >GNU-style arguments that "software should be free" and "Apple is evil and >stupid." I'm a capitalist--what can I say :-)? Let's confuse the matter even further! I am a capitalist. I am one of two partners in Oddball Enterprises, and we aim to be zillionaires. I think software should be free. Why? Because I think software is a beautiful and pure thing, that should not be held prisoner by capitalistic interests. How do these two statements make sense with each other? I think most software is not written for commercial sale, but for the custom use of the company, or person, who commissions its use. I feel it is appropriate to pay for software, when you need some created. I may be wrong here, but I have been in the business for a few years, and it looks to me like this is the case, based on what people have wanted to pay me to do. I also don't like reinventing the wheel, and appreciate the fact that GNU has created a number of high-quality freeware programming utilities, so people don't need to sell them anymore, and can get on to more creative things. There is no scarcity, in my opinion, of potential products. In fact, there are more programs I would like to write, and devices I would like to build, than I could possibly complete in my entire life. When I left home and went to college, I did not mean to be a businessman. I meant to spend my life in academia, where I was taught the value of the free sharing of information and ideas. It also turned out that I did not like academia very much, for other reasons, and really like the exciting pace of business, but I still hold the ethical values that made me originally choose academia. I suppose my opinion could be analogous to the fact that highways are free, but cars are not. Items of infrastructure, that would benefit all, should be produced and distributed freely, if they can be, the way software can be. Items meant for a particular use, or that cannot be produced inexpensively, like a car, should be paid for by the individual. I understand that highways are not really free, but are paid for by the gas tax -- but then free software is not free, either; it is paid for through donations of money and labor, but the payment benefits all, like our taxes are supposed to. You don't have to pay the gas tax to drive. Just make your own fuel. I am an avid supporter of the Free Software Foundation. I am also contracting for Apple, which upsets some of my close friends who are FSF members. I don't think Apple is evil and stupid. There are a number of things I disagree with, but I don't think it is appropriate to boycott Apple, or refuse to consult for them because of it. There are many things that Apple does that are far better for the world as a whole than I see coming from most other companies that the FSF is in favor of. I prefer to work here, and make use of GNU tools, and show people around here how free software benefits even people here at Apple (which makes some people view me as a wild-eyed radical, but my message does get through. Many people had never heard of anonymous FTP before I showed it to them). Note that the Free Software Foundation does not mean anything like "Inexpensive Software Foundation", but more like "Software Freedom Foundation". It is the software itself that is being set free. -- Michael D. Crawford Oddball Enterprises Consulting for Apple Computer Inc. 606 Modesto Avenue escher@apple.com Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Applelink: escher@apple.com@INTERNET# oddball!mike@ucscc.ucsc.edu The opinions expressed here are solely my own. alias make '/bin/make & rn'