MCGUIRE@GRIN2.BITNET (10/08/87)
> Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 11:08:47 PDT > From: Peter Karp <KARP@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU> > Subject: Re: Free Software Foundation > > I am against the concept of a foundation whose purpose is to provide free > software. . . . I have absolutely no qualms with fair competition, i.e., a > company's efforts to produce and maintain high quality software at a lower > cost than an existing company. In fact, I am involved in such an effort. > . . . the FSF is not competing fairly - they are simply giving away their > efforts. . . . GNU Emacs. . . . Now I am a bit annoyed that they are > distributing this for free since I believe they are competing unfairly with > what I consider to be another quality Emacs, . . . GNU C compiler. . . . > I'm annoyed that FSF is giving this away. What would be wrong with their > charging say $2000/copy? (A fraction of DEC's current price?) Isn't a C > compiler worth this? There is nothing wrong with their charging $2000/copy, but there is also nothing morally reprehensible about giving things away! If FSF doesn't feel like capitalizing on its creations, that's up to them. There is no question of unfair competition here. It is unfair to even compare the offerings of FSF with commercial offerings. For example, GNU Emacs does not compete with the commercial Emacs. The commercial vendor provides support services that FSF does not. You're not making an immoral decision if you choose GNU Emacs, you're making a business decision. So you're in the software development business? Hypothetically, if I were developing tools for commercial distribution, I might see free distribution of similar software as as threat to my company's bottom line. Even if I were developing unique tools, I would be dismayed by the precedent, and worried that my capital investment would be threatened by free software developers in the future. I might even suggest that free software is somehow immoral, implying that people ought to charge `market price' for their creations. That is anathema to the concept of the free market, and smells like price-fixing, which is immoral. Commercial software development is a service industry that is absolutely vital to modern data processing. But it does not have the right to insist that individuals not solve data processing problems themselves and also give them to others instead of purchasing a commercial product. > [AT&T deserves] to be rewarded for their incentive and effort in this area. > Now I'm no lawyer and I don't know what kind of legal ground I'm standing > on here, but this seems to me to be analagous to patenting a new process or > device. The general point here is that if people are free to copy your > hard-won techniques, they rob you of some of the incentive for developing > new techniques in the first place. Where I disagree with the position taken regarding free software, I agree wholeheartedly with the concept that someone's ideas ought not to be stolen by someone else. The distinction between the morality of giving and the morality of theft is central to my opinions. I am willing to listen to arguments in any direction on these issues, but right now I am convinced that the FSF is a perfectly legitimate concept, and that it commits a moral transgression only when it steps across the line defined by patent, copyright, and trade secret law. The articles people have written about FSF in relation to the law are the ones I find most valuable, because FSF's legal position is important to me in making software procurement recommendations. The opinions expressed above are my own, not my employer's. ---- Ed McGuire, Systems Coordinator, Grinnell College, MCGUIRE@GRIN2.BITNET