Xref: utzoo gnu.misc.discuss:633 alt.religion.computers:1197 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!jb3o+ From: jb3o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jon Allen Boone) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,alt.religion.computers Subject: Re: The meaning of life, as it relates to hacking. Message-ID: Date: 22 Dec 89 04:31:58 GMT References: <4639@sugar.hackercorp.com> <4ZW1ijS00WBKE1qh5C@andrew.cmu.edu> , <4804@sugar.hackercorp.com> Organization: Class of '92, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 134 In-Reply-To: <4804@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > In article , mellon@nigiri.pa.dec.com (Ted Lemon) writes: > > In this climate of increased government involvement in the most > > personal aspects of our day-to-day lives, you are arguing that we > > should ask the government to step in *yet again* and take away another > > basic freedom that's been present, de facto, since before the > > ratification of the Bill of Rights. > > No sir, it's RMS that's trying to take away our rights. Intellectual property > rights are just as real as any other. Granted. However, rms is simply using the legal methods that have already been passed, supposedly to protect your "intellectual rights." I, however, do not believe this is the case. I think that patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc. do *not* exist to appease a basic need for intellectual property rights. Indeed, many times daily, supposed intellecutals are ridiculed, mocked, put down, flamed, etc. by a population that increasingly feels that "intellectuals" are out of touch with reality. It is laughable to suggest that these "protections" are there to protect your intellectual property rights. Instead, they are safeguards that individuals and corporations feel will secure them profits in the future. I think that point of the GPL is to say that money can be made without resorting to the techniques currently being applied in the software industry. I think that there is an inherrent difference in selling software to a single company for $350 a pop and selling it to an entire nation of people for $350 a pop. If you write software that has limited marketablility, then i can see how you will need to charge higher prices in order to recover your costs. However, if you right a generally useful program such as a spreadsheet or a word processor, there is no need to sell it for $300 to $500 a copy. That is what upsets me. Someone (was it you peter?) suggested that businesses were the largest pirates. Perhaps if software was cheaper, this would change. > I'm in the SCADA business. I make a living writing software to control > industrial processes. Right now my job is maintaining the development > systems for some hundreds of programmers, and porting select portions of > that code to the development system. I've also been involved in writing > part of the control software itself. In my previous job I worked on trackside > analysers: safety equipment for railroads. I've also written programs to > support oil drilling, oil production, and so on. What does SCADA stand for? I am not incredibly knowledgable about different types of business acronyms. > Much of this code has run on off-the-shelf equipment. It's cheaper that way: > that is, it makes better use of available resources. It would probably not > have been possible to make a profit on any of this software if it wasn't > for copyrights, licenses, and so on. If any of our competitors could have > just picked up the code, stuck it in their own boxes, and run with it... > the code would never have been written. Nobody would have invested the man- > years involved in writing this code. Perhaps so. Perhaps not. Of course, there is quite a bit of code out there that has been written for GNU - and i don't think they have made any profits off of it yet. > > Let me tell you something, Peter. You are worth something. But > > you're not so important that you should be given a government-enforced > > grant to rake in money at the cost of the advancement of the state of > > the art. > > Funny, I can't see any such grant out there. I work hard for my money, and > create a great deal of wealth for other people in the process. People like > you, and like all the people you've been writing about. Because I make it > possible for the economy to operate more efficiently, on fewer resources. I can not say for your individual case, peter. However, i can say that Microsoft Corp. has not helped out the economy much, especially when they charge the prices that they charge. > > Good things can be done with software, and with computers. > > But the good things that get done with them aren't the amazing > > spreadsheets that let people count their money ten times faster than > > they used to. > > No. That was merely an example. Something that I presumed people would be > able to appreciate. I'm sure that the details of the Ensun Track Side > Analyser or the Hydril Micro-master or Ferranti's Ranger system would be > stunningly boring to most of the people here. Some of us don't even know what these things are. I assume that they are things that you have written or helped maintian, as per your previous statements. > > The value of good software is in its ability to improve the human > > condition. It's in the ability to make somebody's work less > > frustrating. It's in the ability to simulate the total effect of a > > new drug on the human system. It's in the ability to examine the > > genetic code, and turn off the bit that says, ``this man shall be > > blind'', or ``this woman shall die of cancer''. It's in the ability > > to give that man who abased himself in my friend's living room a > > chance to be happy, and to feel good about himself. I don't know how > > to accomplish all these things, but frankly, I do know that making a > > few people obcenely wealthy just isn't the way. > > I know a way to accomplish these things. Use software instead of hardware, > because it's more efficient a use of resources. But making software free, > making software valueless, isn't going to accomplish that. Because it's going > to take a lot of hard work to create that software... Software that is free is not valueless. Indeed, that sounds much like the old saying of "you get what you pay for" - ie. GNU code is free, (or GNUfree), so it must not be any good. I, for one, don't think that this is the case. I agree that it will take a lot of hard work to create the software. I don't agree that people will not spend the time doing it unless they are compensated monetarily (in terms of the programmer). I would gladly write software for people, if they were to provide me with an environment that it is to run under for me to keep (assuming I want said environment). I will gladly find another way to make money with which to eat, pay rent, etc. > And the best way to make sure it gets written is by giving it a value and > letting the market system work. Depending on people's good will has a > devastatingly poor track record. As you say yourself, depending on people's good will has a poor track record; thus we can not depend on people's good will (ie. giving away source code) in order to see the state of the art improve. > Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva > `-_-' > 'U` "I haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on tape somewhere" iain the flippant | You'll PAY To Know What You REALLY Think | jb3o@andrew.cmu.edu(INTERNET) | Your MIND Left Intentionally Blank | R746JB3O@cmccvb(BITNET) | SCIENCE DOES NOT REMOVE THE TERROR OF THE GODS| disclaimer: anything I say may be wrong - I don't represent anyone but me