meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) (12/07/89)
In article <4598@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM> ned%cad@MCC.COM (Ned Nowotny) writes: |>BYTE: Do your restrictions apply if people take pieces of your code to |>produce other things as well? |> |>Stallman: ... The reason you should obey is because an upright person |>when he distributes software encourages other people to share it further. | |... | |>BYTE: In a sense you are enticing people into this mode of thinking by |>providing all of these interesting tools that they can use but only if they |>buy into your philosophy. |> |>Stallman: Yes. You could also see it as using the legal system that |>software hoarders have set up against them. I'm using it to protect the |>public from them. SO, at least now I have a label. Is this so I know who/what I am, or is this so that Mr. Stallman THINKS he knows who/what I am, or is this so that he can convince others of who/what I am? His applying this label means *absolutely nothing* otherwise, anymore than calling me a capitalist or communist would. Why should software be free? Why not hardware? Cars? Telephone calls? TV? Money? Or anything and everyhting else? Why shouldn't all food be a labor of love? Are farmers mass murderers for not giving away their crops because someone out there is hungry? Mr. Stallman has declared legal war on everyone who writes software and thinks they should be able to charge for it, but I have yet to see the justification for this. There may be some - I'm just saying I haven't seen it. |Ned Nowotny, MCC CAD Program, Box 200195, Austin, TX 78720 Ph: (512) 338-3715 |ARPA: ned@mcc.com UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!milano!cadillac!ned |------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |"We have ways to make you scream." - Intel advertisement in the June 1989 DDJ. No 286s (other Intel ads, billboards, etc) - that's what I've been saying ever since the 286 was announced! -Miles O'Neal {yr fave backbone here}!emory!stiatl!meo
jym@APPLE.COM (12/07/89)
Great. Stallman agrees that's he's using copyrights to entice people away from software hoarding, and Miles reads this as declaring war on software selling. Yeesh, yeesh, and yeesh again. Why does this mailing list exist? Apparently so people can try to make up reasons to pick fights with RMS, almost invariably by not paying attention to the elucidation of the GNU Manifesto. I'm outta here. Count me as unsubscribed. <_Jym_>
barmar@Think.COM (12/07/89)
In article <8041@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: >Why should software be free? Why not hardware? Cars? Telephone calls? >TV? Money? Or anything and everyhting else? Why shouldn't all food be >a labor of love? Are farmers mass murderers for not giving away their >crops because someone out there is hungry? Because software is an intangible, and an infinite number of copies can be made of it. In the case of physical objects, making two of something requires twice as much raw material and manufacturing effort as making one of them. In order to provide more food, more farmers (or the same number of farmers working more hours) are needed, not to mention more fertilizer, pesticide, and storage and trucking capacity. In telephony, the phone company needs to provide more cables and switching circuits to handle increased use. Software, however, doesn't work this way. There is no inherent limit to the number of copies of a program that may be made. The effort involved in writing a program is unrelated to the number of copies that are made. Media distribution has per-unit costs, and that's why the FSF charges $150 to provide a tape of GNU Emacs; they're charging for the media that they had to purchase, and for the manpower expended to process the request. Of course, this argument applies to just about everything covered by copyright law. For instance, a publisher may print a limited number of copies of a book, but I'm not depriving anyone of a book by making a photocopy of a book. Basically, the purpose of copyright law is to establish this artificial limit in order to allow the creator to get a reasonable return. A difference between software and literature, however, is that software authors have other means to get income. When an author finishes writing a book, he's done everything there is to do, and he deserves some income for it. However, a software producer is also a service provider; he can charge for customer support. Going back to my above argument, it makes sense to charge for customer service, because the service provider has a limited amount of manpower available. In effect, a book author or artist is providing the service of providing enjoyment to the reader/viewer; without copyright law, the only way he could get remuneration from everyone who makes use of this service would be by requiring them to come to him to read/view (e.g. by putting a painting in a gallery and charging an entrance fee). However, in order to provide this service to more people, many creators give up their physical control by selling copies (i.e. publishing). Their primary service is still the enjoyment of making use of a copy, so it makes sense for them to be reimbursed by anyone using this service (in the enjoyment business, someone who makes 1000 people happy should make more than someone who makes 100 people happy); this is the purpose of royalties. Copyright law encourages creative people to give up physical control of their creations in exchange for legal control of the creation and use of copies. Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
vcc@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (Guest from Vogelback) (12/07/89)
In article <32054@news.Think.COM> barmar@Think.COM writes: >In article <8041@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: >>Why should software be free? Why not hardware? Cars? Telephone calls? >>TV? Money? Or anything and everyhting else? Why shouldn't all food be >>a labor of love? Are farmers mass murderers for not giving away their >>crops because someone out there is hungry? > >A difference between software and literature, however, is that software >authors have other means to get income. When an author finishes writing a >book, he's done everything there is to do, and he deserves some income for >it. However, a software producer is also a service provider; he can charge >for customer support. Going back to my above argument, it makes sense to >charge for customer service, because the service provider has a limited >amount of manpower available. Yes, but doesn't this kind of thinking encourage those who write software, under this condition, not to write good code? I, for one, when I write code, attempt to write it such that I never need to maintain it. Needless to say, I've never been successful on the first try :), but it would seem that if I wanted to charge for software support and revisions, I'd want not to write good code so my clients would need to keep me around. This seems contrary to all that RMS and FSF are attempting to encourage: if their version of emacs were *really* buggy then we'd all have a reason to keep them in business, right? Just a random thought. --- christopher j. chen northwestern university christopher@nuacc.acns.nwu.edu
hugo@griggs.dartmouth.edu (Peter Su) (12/07/89)
In article <8041@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: >Why should software be free? Why not hardware? Cars? Telephone calls? >TV? Money? Or anything and everyhting else? Why shouldn't all food be >a labor of love? Are farmers mass murderers for not giving away their >crops because someone out there is hungry? > >Mr. Stallman has declared legal war on everyone who writes software >and thinks they should be able to charge for it, but I have yet to From where I sit, its not why should software be free, but why should current software companies get away with the their ridiculous licensing policies. Think about it, here I am, putting down say, $400 on Microsoft Word, or Excel, or Wordperfect or the latest C compiler ($4000 if I'm buying UNIX software). I open the box, and what is there? 1) Some "documentation"...you know what I mean. 2) A disk, maybe a tape, total value: $15 3) Some bits on the disk that allow the software to run on my machine. 4) A bogus license which says: "You have just paid a huge wad of cash for this software. We do not claim that it works, we do not claim that it is useful, we don't even claim that it does anything that our advertising says it does. You cannot copy it, you can't fix it yourself if it breaks, you can't look inside and see how it works (no source code see)." Now, contrast this with what I get when I buy a TV. 1) Some "documentation" 2) A big metal box with actual parts in it. Something "material." 3) A (gasp!) WARRANTY...like, the company actually thinks this TV will work, and will do so for between one and five years! 4) If I open it up, I can in principle figure out how it works, fix it myself, take it apart, put it back together. Normal people can't do this, that's what dealers are for. My point is this: If you software guys expect me to pay my money for software it had better have a god damn warranty on it, it had better have source code, and it had better have decent support. Not this namby pamby phone support bullshit, but someone who can come out and fix the bugs, who knows how the box works, who has seen source code once or twice in his/her life. Otherwise, if you want to give me software sans warranty, with all those restrictions, what right do YOU have to expect ME to PAY for it? You couldn't give it to me free. Now, while I agree with what RMS is doing in principle, I am not quite as radical as he is. I am perfectly willing to allow folks to charge for their software, and restrict its distribution as long as the product they sell, and the support they give is comparable to what is available in other industries in terms of reliability and quality. Right now, commercial software is about as reliable as a balsa wood bridge spanning the Hudson river. To sum up, I'm rooting for RMS, and hope that I can support what he is doing. Just the fact that the source code is available is enough for me to overlook the "restrictions" that he places on its distribution. I like user-maintainable software, I'm funny that way. Cheers, Pete hugo@sunapee.dartmouth.edu
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (12/07/89)
In article <8041@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: | Mr. Stallman has declared legal war on everyone who writes software | and thinks they should be able to charge for it, but I have yet to | see the justification for this. There may be some - I'm just saying | I haven't seen it. I think you're overstating a bit. Richard has his own paradigm for how software should be written and distributed. It is essentially a "no binary without source" model. The major problem I've had with FSF is that some hardware vendors are now using gcc as their standard C compiler. This is fine, but if they use the FSF C library, and you compile and link using it, then your executable contains FSF code and is (supposedly) covered by the GNU diatribe. Er, copyleft. If you don't know this you can suddenly lose control of your own software. I don't know if this has ever happened, but would not use gcc for certain things. If it's the only compiler on a given machine, I would avoid the machine. While FSF has the right to do what they want, I would think that a vendor would clarify the status of the library they ship. I have tried several times to talk to him about allowing distribution of binary without source if the binary is given away with no restrictions on redistribution (ie. not for profit), but he simply calls this "software hoarding" and doesn't want to permit it. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon
jat@ranger.austin.ibm.com (John Tamplin) (12/08/89)
In article <8041@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: >Why should software be free? Why not hardware? Cars? Telephone calls? >TV? Money? Or anything and everyhting else? Why shouldn't all food be >a labor of love? Are farmers mass murderers for not giving away their >crops because someone out there is hungry? Software is a manifestation of knowledge. The utility of software to a person is not diminished by another also having the software. TV is a case where the public doesn't pay for it -- advertisers who like what the product (the movie, event, etc) represents and the audience it reaches subisidize the program. Software can work the same way. All of the other examples you gave cost the provider to provide more. >Mr. Stallman has declared legal war on everyone who writes software >and thinks they should be able to charge for it, but I have yet to >see the justification for this. There may be some - I'm just saying >I haven't seen it. Legal war? All FSF is doing is promoting their own ideas and backing them up with action. If you think this is war, then so is every aspect of the free market. The market will decide which idea will survive. If nobody agrees with FSF and decides not to use their products, it will go away. If nobody wants to pay outrageous prices for commercial software, they will have to change or they will go away. >-Miles O'Neal >{yr fave backbone here}!emory!stiatl!meo John Tamplin
raulmill@usc.edu (Raul Deluth Rockwell) (12/08/89)
In article <8041@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes:
;> Mr. Stallman has declared legal war on everyone who writes software
;> and thinks they should be able to charge for it, but I have yet to
;> see the justification for this. There may be some - I'm just saying
;> I haven't seen it.
Not even! Mr. Stallman charges for software. (or hadn't you
noticed? 8^)
On the other hand, have you ever tried to fix something which requires
you have an At&T Source Code License? Or how about Sun's statement of
the form: "If you use this software you have implictly agreed not to
look at the object code or reverse engineer it."
--davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (12/08/89)
In article <17799@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> hugo@griggs (Peter Su) writes: | My point is this: If you software guys expect me to pay my money for | software it had better have a god damn warranty on it, it had better | have source code, and it had better have decent support. Not this | namby pamby phone support bullshit, but someone who can come out and | fix the bugs, who knows how the box works, who has seen source code | once or twice in his/her life. Otherwise, if you want to give me | software sans warranty, with all those restrictions, what right do YOU | have to expect ME to PAY for it? You couldn't give it to me free. Do note that the support for GNU is not free, unless you are a hobbyist. The time you spend on software cost your company money. Are you aware that Michael Tiemann, author of gc++, is forming a company which will sell support for GNU products, fix bugs, add features, and the stuff which you could do youself if you work for free? Going price for support is about $100k/year. The point is that when people demand support someone will sell it, when people think a product cost too much they won't buy it. The free market works nicely, and without anyone telling us how we "must" do things for the common good. If FSF wants to give away software, great! If people see it as an alternative to commercial software the price of commercial software will come down. That's the way it should work. It's the idea of telling someone that they are not allowed to sell their work which I don't buy... if there is no way to make money writing software we are going to need more rich people who can afford to write it for nothing, and there aren't many out there. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon
rwa@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Ross Alexander) (12/08/89)
meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: >Mr. Stallman has declared legal war on everyone who writes software >and thinks they should be able to charge for it, but I have yet to >see the justification for this. There may be some - I'm just saying >I haven't seen it. Justify it? what for? He can just do it, period. No one has to justify going into business - which is what RMS & FSF have done. They are competing on price, and they've set the price @ $0.00. A free enterprise system encourages competition and improved efficiency. It seems to be working fine. So meet the competition he has created on price, or beat it on some other facet (service, functionality, use your imagination). Software has become a commodity. Tough cheese for the people out there who thought they could get big margins by creating an artificial scarcity. Ross
rodney@dali.ipl.rpi.edu (Rodney Peck II) (12/08/89)
>>>>> On 7 Dec 89 11:10:33 GMT, vcc@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (Guest from Vogelback) said: cjc> In article <32054@news.Think.COM> barmar@Think.COM writes: >In article <8041@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: >>Why should software be free? Why not hardware? Cars? Telephone calls? >>TV? Money? Or anything and everyhting else? Why shouldn't all food be >>a labor of love? Are farmers mass murderers for not giving away their >>crops because someone out there is hungry? > >A difference between software and literature, however, is that software >authors have other means to get income. When an author finishes writing a >book, he's done everything there is to do, and he deserves some income for >it. However, a software producer is also a service provider; he can charge >for customer support. Going back to my above argument, it makes sense to >charge for customer service, because the service provider has a limited >amount of manpower available. cjc> Yes, but doesn't this kind of thinking encourage those who write software, cjc> under this condition, not to write good code? I, for one, when I write cjc> code, attempt to write it such that I never need to maintain it. Needless cjc> to say, I've never been successful on the first try :), but it would seem cjc> that if I wanted to charge for software support and revisions, I'd want not cjc> to write good code so my clients would need to keep me around. This seems cjc> contrary to all that RMS and FSF are attempting to encourage: if their cjc> version of emacs were *really* buggy then we'd all have a reason to keep cjc> them in business, right? No, because there would be other people like myself who would write code that works and would quickly put you and your bug ridden greedy code out of business. -- Rodney
phil@unicorn.WWU.EDU (Phil Nelson) (12/08/89)
In article <1889@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>, davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) writes: > It's > the idea of telling someone that they are not allowed to sell their work > which I don't buy... if there is no way to make money writing software > we are going to need more rich people who can afford to write it for > nothing, and there aren't many out there. I'm sure Stallman is not telling anyone they are not allowed to sell their work. In fact, people sell their work to FSF! But FSF is not in the business of SUPPORTING software products that are not "free" by the FSF definition. So you can create software and sell only binaries, etc, BUT you can't include in that software anything from FSF! ----- Phil Nelson (phil@unicorn.wwu.edu) at Western Washington University.
meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) (12/08/89)
Several people have suggested that (a) hardware SHOULD cost, because it costs the producer, whereas software does not, and that (b) it's ok to charge for support but not the software. A) Even after you remove the "bought physical resources" in hardware, someone has to design, build, test, etc, the product, and any number of people then may make a profit on it, including but not limited to: owners, officers, engineers, technicians, sales people, marketeers, lawyers, secretaries, janitors, shippers, the phone company, various governments, sanitation engineers ( 8^), assembly line personnel, etc. These types of things are the case with software, as well, or have their counterparts. To have a software shop that will make me a living, I have to have (at a minimum) space, a computer, development software, utilities, and money to pay the bills to produce the product that will pay the bills in the future (or invest personal time away from family and friends after working a full time job). To expect that the only right choice is for me to then GIVE AWAY that software is patently ridiculous, IMO. If Richard Stallman, or anyone else, chooses to do so, that's fine. To state that it's immoral for someone else NOT to do so (and RMS has done just that) is somewhere between ludicrous and immoral. B) Since support is essentially the same as software (ie, mostly time, experience and knowledge), this argument makes no sense to me. Why shouldn't the support be free, as well? As to the person who mentioned the warranty problem, I wholeheartedly agree. It's one of the severe problems I have with (for example) the U.S. auto industry. For the price of the stupid "extended" warranty, they could do a whole lot more right the FIRST time. If my software gets to market, I fully intend to blow most of the current warranties out of the water. Finally, I am not opposed to free software. Some of what I write is for free distribution - some of it is for making a living. In fact, there's a good metaphor here. The same thing applies to a lot of musicians. So why shouldn't music be free? While I have a rather low opinion of the entertainment/media in general, and find it silly that various crazed people can become millionaires overnight by playing on teenager's emotions, I certainly wouldn't try to ban them from making their money that way. -Miles
jb3o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jon Allen Boone) (12/08/89)
vcc@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (Guest from Vogelback) writes: > Yes, but doesn't this kind of thinking encourage those who write software, > under this condition, not to write good code? I, for one, when I write > code, attempt to write it such that I never need to maintain it. Needless > to say, I've never been successful on the first try :), but it would seem > that if I wanted to charge for software support and revisions, I'd want not > to write good code so my clients would need to keep me around. This seems > contrary to all that RMS and FSF are attempting to encourage: if their > version of emacs were *really* buggy then we'd all have a reason to keep > them in business, right? Well, if you are simply programming for the money, then truly it will be a program. However, if i were to ever put out a program, i would like to make it best i could possibly make it. Call it pride in workmanship or whatever, but i wouldn't *want* to put out buggy code. However, as has been pointed out on another list, creating applications that can be used by the computer-(il)literate masses is much more difficult than writing software for people who know how to use computers (the basic premise behind the macintoy standard interface). No matter how good you are at coding, you are highly unlikely to produce code that everyone can use without some sort of aid (assumedly by you). > Just a random thought. > > --- > christopher j. chen > northwestern university > christopher@nuacc.acns.nwu.edu 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
barmar@Think.COM (12/09/89)
In article <1912@accuvax.nwu.edu> vcc@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (Guest from Vogelback) writes: > if I wanted to charge for software support and revisions, I'd want not >to write good code so my clients would need to keep me around. This seems >contrary to all that RMS and FSF are attempting to encourage: if their >version of emacs were *really* buggy then we'd all have a reason to keep >them in business, right? No. If you had a choice, would you choose the author of an extremely buggy program to maintain it? Sure, he knows the program better than anyone else, but he seems like a lousy programmer. Since FSF provides source code, you can find a *good* programmer to fix it up. Also, since you didn't have to pay for the program, you don't feel a major loss if you have to toss it out because it doesn't satisfy your needs. Also, maintenance is not just fixing bugs, it's also enhancements (no matter how good a programmer you are, you won't think of all the possible features). Customers probably aren't going to bother asking for lots of enhancements to a lousy program (and certainly not from the lousy programmer who wrote it). If the program is good, the users will want to use it more and will want it to do more. By the way, my father once had a programmer in his company's computer department (which consisted of one senior programmer, one junior programmer (this guy), an operator and some keypunch operators) with the above attitude. He did some contract work on the side, and told me outright that he intentionally put bugs in his contract code so that he would have job security. The guy was not really very sharp, so I was hardly surprised at his behavior. Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
barmar@Think.COM (12/09/89)
In article <1885@crdos1.crd.ge.COM] davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) writes:
]if they
]use the FSF C library, and you compile and link using it, then your
]executable contains FSF code and is (supposedly) covered by the GNU
]diatribe. Er, copyleft.
I didn't think there *was* a GNU C library.
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.
barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmarbarmar@Think.COM (12/09/89)
In article <8078@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: > To have a software shop that will make me a living, I have to have > (at a minimum) space, a computer, development software, utilities, > and money to pay the bills to produce the product that will pay the > bills in the future (or invest personal time away from family and > friends after working a full time job). But to sell the software to twice as many people you don't need twice as much space, two computers, etc. So why do you need to receive twice as much money if twice as many people want to use the software? Where is the unit cost that justifies the unit price? > To expect that the only right choice is for me to then GIVE AWAY > that software is patently ridiculous, IMO. If Richard Stallman, > or anyone else, chooses to do so, that's fine. To state that it's > immoral for someone else NOT to do so (and RMS has done just that) > is somewhere between ludicrous and immoral. Well, Stallman is living proof that it's possible to make a living in the software business without selling software. FSF sells computer distribution services, and individual GNU programmers sell consulting services, but they give the software away. >B) Since support is essentially the same as software (ie, mostly time, > experience and knowledge), this argument makes no sense to me. Why > shouldn't the support be free, as well? If support only means that the customers will get an update when you feel like distributing it, your argument is correct; in this case, "support" is just a subscription service. Many software vendors provide this kind of service at little or no fee. But real support means answering user's questions, processing bug reports, sending them immediate fixes to serious problems, and perhaps providing consulting services. It takes more time to provide this kind of support to more people, and there are only so many hours in a day. Supporting one customer may take away time from another customer. If you have enough support customers you may need to hire additional people to help. Since there is marginal cost for each customer you support it makes sense to charge each a fee. >why shouldn't music be free? I think the argument I gave about authors in my previous posting applies to music composers as well. Unless the composer is also a performer, he doesn't really have any other avenues to pursue in his field to make a living. If all he does is compose, and music were free, how could he make a living? (Well, RMS would like to see the government paying programmers to produce free software, so I guess the government could also pay composers, artists, writers, etc. -- in other words, composers should be paid by the NEA, and the music would be free.) Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
rwa@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Ross Alexander) (12/11/89)
barmar@Think.COM writes: >In article <8078@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: >>why shouldn't music be free? [...] >a living? (Well, RMS would like to see the government paying programmers >to produce free software, so I guess the government could also pay >composers, artists, writers, etc. -- in other words, composers should be >paid by the NEA, and the music would be free.) We do that in Canada, it's called the Canadian Arts Council, and is considered eminently respectable. We also have socialist governments from time to time, and socialist medicine. Somehow this runs in parallel with a private market economy just fine. Americans can be _so_ ethnocentric! 100 * :-). (So can we Canuks, mind). Ross