Xref: utzoo gnu.misc.discuss:655 alt.religion.computers:1226 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!nuchat!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,alt.religion.computers Subject: Re: The meaning of life, as it relates to hacking. Message-ID: <4822@sugar.hackercorp.com> Date: 23 Dec 89 19:13:46 GMT References: <4639@sugar.hackercorp.com> <4ZW1ijS00WBKE1qh5C@andrew.cmu.edu> <4804@sugar.hackercorp.com> Reply-To: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston Lines: 56 > Granted. However, rms is simply using the legal methods that have > already been passed, supposedly to protect your "intellectual rights." Seems a bit hypocritical. > intellecutals are ridiculed, mocked, put down, flamed, etc. by a > population that increasingly feels that "intellectuals" are out of > touch with reality. You're letting words have power over you. Intellectual property hasn't anything to do with the rights of "intellectuals". And your elitist flaming about what the "general population" is or isn't in favor of doesn't help your argument. Anyway the remainder of my previous article defends intellectual property rights without playing games with words... > 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 they're willing to pay $350 a pop for it, then what's the matter? And you'd be just as upset if they charged $50... or $5... if they didn't give the source away. > What does SCADA stand for? Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. > 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. I've written that sort of thing for free, too. Not for GNU, though. But there's no way I'd work under the sort of conditions you have to deal with doing large real-time projects without pay. > 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. You can say the same about Frank Lorenzo or Donald Trump. Unfortunately there seems to be no way to avoid such rich sociopaths if you want to use the market system. And the market system has proven its worth. > 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). You ever worked on control software? Accounting software? Don't condemn a man 'till you've walked a mile in his shoes. -- Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva `-_-' 'U` "I haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on tape somewhere"