Xref: utzoo alt.security:1324 alt.folklore.computers:4629 comp.society.futures:1949 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!samsung!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!ucbvax!STC06.CTD.ORNL.GOV!de5 From: de5@STC06.CTD.ORNL.GOV (SILL D E) Newsgroups: alt.security,alt.folklore.computers,comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Feedback on Computer Crime Message-ID: <9008091507.AA06792@stc06.CTD.ORNL.GOV> Date: 9 Aug 90 15:07:20 GMT References: <14462@wpi.wpi.edu> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab Lines: 72 In article <14462@wpi.wpi.edu> dmorin@wpi.wpi.edu writes: >>>As Levy says, the hackers of yesteryear simply don't exist today. >> >>What about the last of the hackers, Richard Stallman? Did you read >>the chapter about him in _Hackers_? > >I understood Levy's opinion of Stallman to be that he was the last of >a dying breed, trying to fight for an ethic that was as good as gone. You said `the hackers of yesteryear simply don't exist today'. I provided a counterexample to that statement. Stallman's just the most visible of them. >>>If you wrote a good program, you gave it to everyone because you >>>were proud of it, and if someone took your code and changed it so >>>that it was better well, then, good for them. You were proud for >>>them as well. But today people don't circulate software for the >>>good of al concerned, they do it for personal gain. >> >>Stallman, and *many* GNU supporters would beg to differ. > >You took that quote out of context. I'm afraid I don't see how the context I removed could have changed the meaning of the above. Do you, or do you not, claim that `today people don't circulate software for the good of all concerned'? If so, the Free Software Foundation is a shining counterexample, as are the hundreds of others whose code sits in archives on uunet, tut, and various other archive sites. >I went on to say that people circulate software most notably in >piracy, such as trying to get the newest game to as many of their >friends as possible. You might consider piracy the `most notable' form of software circulation, but what are your criteria? Certainly more software is circulated through the commercial software market. >I fully agree that people will support the type of 'groupware' thing >that Stalman tried to create with GNU, The use of the past tense there is incorrect, the GNU project is very much alive and making great progress. >but simply that it will never flourish like it could when people can >get the new Sierra game, which is definitively the state of the art >in adventure games, for free, or something written by a handful of >high school kids after school which simply isnt as good. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say there. Could you rephrase it? >Some do work, granted (Minix comes to mind immediately), but I dont >think that the quality of the freeware in the world will ever match >the commerical stuff. Patent nonsense. GNU Emacs is far superior to the commercial alternatives; a UNIX Review comparison of GNU and Unipress Emacsen backs that claim. The GNU C Compiler outperforms many commercial compilers and is the standard compiler for NeXT and DG AViiON systems. The X Window System as distributed by the MIT X Consortium is not only commercial quality, but is in fact the basis of most--if not all--commercial X software. Commercial software is not inherently superior to freeware. Don't underestimate the effort a dedicated hacker will put into his freely distributed work. -- Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov) These are my opinions. Martin Marietta Energy Systems Workstation Support