Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!udel!rochester!rutgers!mcnc!thorin!unc!bell
From: bell@unc.cs.unc.edu (Andrew Bell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: FREE Software, PD and author compensation
Message-ID: <5866@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 13 Dec 88 16:58:04 GMT
References: <12523@cup.portal.com>
Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu
Reply-To: bell@unc.UUCP (Andrew Bell)
Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 70

In article <12523@cup.portal.com> dan-hankins@cup.portal.com (Daniel B Hankins) writes:
>In article <5820@thorin.cs.unc.edu> bell@unc.cs.unc.edu (Andrew Bell) and I
>had a discussion on the merits of free software and author compensation.

>1. I said that information should be free, to which Mr. Bell responded that
>   essentially there would be far less software available if information
>   were free.  It ain't necessarily so.

I think there would,  and I'll explain why later.

>   Am I free to work with whoever I like?  I submit that I am not.  I work
>   for computer company X.  If I work with a person from company Y (the
>   enemy, by definition) then I will be fired from company A, and taken to
>   court for stealing proprietary information.

Company A?  Who are they to fire you?  :-)

That's the price of signing your life away to IBM...  Actually,  from my
examination of their form,  it didn't look like there was anything to stop
you doing that unless you were working on something similar at work.  Then
again,  I'm no lawyer...

Now if you think that you should not be able to sign your rights away for
intellectual property,  I think we have some agreement.  If a company wants
the rights to software I develop in my free time,  that's a company I don't
want to work for.  I personally think such agreements should be illegal.

As for stealing proprietary information,  again,  I don't believe such info
would exist in the first place without intellectual property.

>     Well, my system is not *that* different from GNU.  In the final phase
>of my system, companies pay other companies money for the service of
>developing software.  Once the software is developed, however, it passes
>into the public domain.
>     On the individual user side, users join together into users groups. 
>User groups join together into nationwide usergroup hierarchies.  Part of
>user group dues go into commisioning software authors to produce programs
>for the group.  The group members get to submit ideas for new programs, and
>to vote on new programs (and money to write them) on a local, regional, and
>national level.

>Dan Hankins

So what is stopping people?  There's nothing illegal about doing this.

Perhaps the only thing about intellectual property that discourages this is
piracy:  with the current system,  the easy availability of most software for
free to many users removes the need for such.

The problem with your idea is that it is just as easy to not pay and get the
benefits as it is to pay,  so most people want.  The loss of voice in what gets
produced is countered by the fact that:

a)  things of general interest will get produced anyay;

b)  if it is of a much more specialized interest,  the group probably won't
    vote to produce it.

Such methods might be good for producing software for the needs of a small
group,  but such products will necessarily be small or expensive for the group
members.  In a larger group,  where one's voice is drowned out and the
other benefits still gained by those who aren't members,  the incentive to
join is simply too small.

Perhaps you have too much faith in humanity,  and I have too little...:-S

------
Andrew Bell,  living a double life at bell@cs.unc.edu and acb@cs.duke.edu
"Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having
a 'War' on it?" -Rich Thomson, talk.politics.misc