Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!serene!rfarris
From: rfarris@serene.UUCP (Rick Farris)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Advertising on comp.emacs
Message-ID: <209@serene.UUCP>
Date: 14 Dec 88 04:03:52 GMT
References: <33444@bbn.COM>
Reply-To: rfarris@.UUCP (Rick Farris)
Followup-To: alt.flame
Organization: Serenity Systems
Lines: 83

In article <33444@bbn.COM> dsill@RELAY-NSWC.NAVY.MIL (Dave Sill) writes:
>Rick Farris (rfarris@serene.cts.com) writes:
>>Well, sure.  I'd say most for-profit organizations are providing
>>services of great benefit to the community.  At least the ones that
>>are making a profit.  Otherwise the community wouldn't be supporting
>>them with their dollars.
>
>Yeah, right, like Microsoft has really done computing a great service
>by selling us MS-DOS.

Of course they have.  We Unix bigots know all of the faults of
MS-DOS, and prefer to use real operating systems like Unix, but the
vast majority of the unwashed masses need only a "control" program to
load their applications software.  MS-DOS works just fine (and
provides a great service) for those folks.

> There's no connection between commercial success and benefit to the
> community.

You must be joking.  There are certainly exceptions, but generally
speaking, there is a very direct connection between commercial
success and benefit to the community.  It's called "voting with your
dollars."

> And then there's the question of motive.  Is Lotus a collection of
> Good Samaritans trying to make users more productive or are they a
> bunch of money grubbing MBAs trying to line their pockets?

This is the first time the question of motive has come up.  It's your
strawman, answer your own questions.  Don't try to attribute your
favorite crusades to me.

>>Don't get me wrong, I'm not denigrating the FSF; I think they're
>>doing a *great* job.  I just don't think that there's any difference
>>in paying their programmers, and paying other programmers.
>
>Ah, but there's all the difference in the world.  You're not just
>paying programmers when you buy commercial software, you're giving
>them profits.  Where do those profits go?  Use your imagination.

Hey, I'm getting tired of this shit!  All I said was that there is no
difference in paying the programmers.  I'm not here to act as a
convenient excuse for you to vent your spleen about motives, profits,
etc.

> And their product is always available at no cost if you can find
> someone to make a copy for you or have net access. 

This was a common theme in the mail I received, and you're (all)
right.  That *is* the big difference.

>>I don't really care, as long as I get a good product at a fair price,
>>with good support.

> As for support, I find the Internet community is usually more
> knowledgeable and quicker to respond with the correct answer than
> most customer support "hotlines" staffed by twits that know less
> about the product that I do.

There you go again.  I specifically said "good support", not
"'hotlines' staffed by twits."

You guys could make a lot more friends (and converts) if you didn't
take every opportunity you can find to abuse those that have even
minor philosophical differences with you.  In my original post, I
only made two observations:

	1) I don't see that paying a programmer is any better or
	   worse of an activity based on who he works for.

	2) I don't care who gets the money, as long as I get good
	   software, at a reasonable price, with good support.

You used those two observations as an excuse to build a strawman so
that you could knock it down.

Carry on all the crusades you want, just do them on your own, or with
someone that is perhaps more opposed to you.  Don't use me as your
whipping boy.

-- 
Rick Farris   RF Engineering  POB M  Del Mar, CA  92014   voice (619) 259-6793
rfarris@serene.cts.com     ...!uunet!serene!rfarris       serene.UUCP 259-7757