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From: WANCHO@SIMTEL20.ARPA (Frank J. Wancho)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Free is inferior -- by definition?
Message-ID: <9642@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 1-Apr-85 02:59:22 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.9642
Posted: Mon Apr  1 02:59:22 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Apr-85 02:07:14 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
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What's this?  Are you all really passively standing on the sidelines
accepting as gospel the "fact" that free is inferior?  Certainly there
is alot of trash in the public domain.  But, there are a few gems,
too!  And some of those gems are the reason why the equivalent
commercial versions don't exist, and where they do, they're overkill
so that you'll get the warm fuzzy feeling that you've got your money's
worth over something that is free.  Does that make the commercial
version "superior"?

Is it superior because it's "bsupported"?  Just what does "supported"
mean?  Does it mean bugs get fixed?  Well, some of those gems are
supported too, and perhaps better, particularly the popular utility
programs.

So, let's not accept blanket statements such as "free is inferior".
The fact of the matter is there are a handful of gems whose value far
out weigh their cost.  In most of those cases, they are more than
free; they're priceless.


If I didn't believe that last statement was true, I wouldn't have
bothered to make the space available here for those gems and other
diamonds in the rough as well as the "trash".  As for the "trash",
that's only someone's perception of usefulness, and so is inferiority.
That is why what is available here is everything that we can find,
as-is, and leave you to find something that suits you.  In many cases,
that alone is sufficient, and certainly better than nothing.

--Frank