Note: I do not necessarily belive in everythin I say n most o the time it is jus for the sake of argument that I will say somethin, in the hope that your argument becomes stronger through criticism. Also I have nothin in particular against Microsoft or ne one for that matter. Hate the sin n not the sinner!
lesse...
The terms "legal and ethical" were implied when I mentioned schemes and strategies. We are talking about a sane & functioning society. Microsoft, as an example, has to follow the US rules and regulations. I feel they have been within the law except for a few cases when they have been successfully sued.
"The Law" my friend has not kept up with technology. Take the adobe case in point: How *stupid* the law is sometimes!
But I suppose this situation is no different from any other business. Note that when I say 'ethical', I mean the ethics or morality that our society agrees to as a whole. On a personal level ethics can have a very varied meaning. We cannot consider those as binding.
yep!
I was not talking cola vs. software. I was talking in general about the business environment. The cola companies make enough profit (they have invested over a billion rupees (each) in India without a return of a single piasa as profit), that they can easily charge less than what they already do and still make good money. I agree that software is different (functional eh???) from cola. The cola are using the same formula for over a 100year without much change. They get most of their revenue out of manufacturing. How many people are still making money out of software they wrote say 8-10 years back. I am not comparing software company vs. cola company. I was talking about commercial venture vs. commercial venture - in general.
U say u r not comparin, but thats exactly whad u r doin up there dude! i agree u'r comparin comm. vs comm. but one cannot generalize.
Here I totally disagree with you my friend. It is still natural 'Darwinian' selection in progress and will always be. A discussion on this will be so much OT that the others may probably have kill us to stop us. We will do it in private.
Wokay! cant wait to have that discussion.
You forget that I mentioned 'stronger, smarter'. Strength may refer a whole lot of strengths - not merely physical.
eh.. if it was meant to be so general then i guess even smartness is also a strength, then why mention it seperatly? U seem to have used it in a physical sense.
What is decent according to one may be pathetic according to another. Starvation is not the point. There may be people around who may want a fast car, a big house, the secretaryship of the local golf club, dinner at the Taj etc.etc. We cannot call it unethical or illegal.
Who is callin it ne o that. what i'm sayin is that people survive on this kind o work. Mind u i'm sayin survive, which seems to be enuf 4 them, they dont need expensive toys like cars, big house, children ;) , etc.
ummm... 'Morally' he should give it to society as it benefits all. But 'ethically' we cannot force him to give it (though practically we could & would). That is the reason research of this kind is funded and organised by society itself (in the guise of the government or non-profitable organisatinos). Not only cure for such major things like AIDS etc. but medicine as a whole comes under such kinds of discussions. Again the OT ness prevents me from elaborating.
ah my friend now u'r some where near the "FreeDevelopers.net" space. Government/non-profitable/industry-consortiums fundin are all very interestin wayz to make Free Software.
No. What I said still stands. The 'just limits' are implied as we _are_ talking about a sane society. The freedom I am talking about is very pragmatic and is infact the state of things right now. Microsoft operates with its priorities, the FSF operates with its ideologies and we operate with our freedom to choose Windows 98/NT or GNU/Linux. An insane society (in total chaos) would be a whole other ball game. In it (probably) M$ would hire gunmen to see no one uses GNU software.
I had a dream sometime back where i saw this Microsoft goon shootin down this innocent dude called Netscape n then the goon went after a dude called Real networks. Im so glad it was just a bad nightmare n not reality.
Does a restaurant, who has a popular special dish, disclose its secret recipe?
again, ne dish is not functional in the same sense as software is. u "use" software n u "enjoy" a dish/art, from a enduser point of view.
Can you please elaborate on this 'functional' thing? In (probably) the same vein, a painting is not same as a dish.
wokay. Heres the thing: take the example of a iron box. If my neighbour wants to iron his shirt n he come's n borrows my XYZ ka iron box n i give it to him, XYZ wont come n arrest me! u see the value o the iron box does not become ne less when i share cause i can always use it later on. but say there is this sandwich n my neighbour eats it, then i cant eat it, so i'm obviously gonna be pissed off n wont share that.
An iron box or software is a tool- whereas a sandwich or paintin is a accessories. U do stuff(function) with tools n u jus "enjoy" accessories.
note that the neighbour will eventually get his own iron box when he can afford it n save himself 4rm the discomfort n so XYZ or whoever will make their money. So the idea is that ppl need to see enuf value in what u provide.
then they are within their right to sell this software - with all strings attached.
??? eh?.....
I stick to this. You are not forced to buy them.
A friend o mine got this Compaq mac. n he was *FORCED* to have Win on it. cause other wise he would be refused support. You can force ppl in not so obvious wayz. Also the CD that came with it does some wierd partition shit, so that he had to use partion magic to be able to fit Linux into the M$ box. hmm.. I wonder if the CD behaviour has some hidden agenda. You can also force ppl by not givin them choices by killin *all* competion.
There are plenty of other software companies which sell software and dont behave in any way like Microsoft.
Can't deny that! :) i'm with u on that man.
Sandeep --- "The bird or insect that stumbles into a room and cannot find the window. Because they know no 'windows.'" ~The Lord and the New Creatures, Jim Morrison (12/8/43 - 7/3/71)
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First of all, all this argument was about ethics of selling proprietary software. Not about Microsoft.
At 06:27 AM 7/24/01 -0400, you wrote:
"The Law" my friend has not kept up with technology. Take the adobe case in point: How *stupid* the law is sometimes!
However *stupid* we have to live with it. It has to adapt to new situations and scenarios. And that takes time because it is us who are doing the 'changes'. All the sides and perspectives to the 'changes' have to be debated and discussed by a _lot_ of people (lawmakers) to actually incorporate a change in the law (to make it as fair and stable as possible). In the meantime there are a few who suffer. Unfortunate, but cannot be helped.
U say u r not comparin, but thats exactly whad u r doin up there dude! i agree u'r comparin comm. vs comm. but one cannot generalize.
personal opinions. One can definitely generalise depending on what point he is stressing/highlighting.
eh.. if it was meant to be so general then i guess even smartness is also a strength, then why mention it seperatly? U seem to have used it in a physical sense.
There is a subtle difference - but let us not cribb about word play, shall we?
Who is callin it ne o that. what i'm sayin is that people survive on this kind o work. Mind u i'm sayin survive, which seems to be enuf 4 them, they dont need expensive toys like cars, big house, children ;) , etc.
If you read my mail, I gave quite a few examples of people who do survive and enjoy this kind of work. What I was pointing out was that the number of such people in nowhere near the majority and that the other kind of people deserve to have the choice of life they prefer : expensive cars, big house, kids et.al. ;))
I had a dream sometime back where i saw this Microsoft goon shootin down this innocent dude called Netscape n then the goon went after a dude called Real networks. Im so glad it was just a bad nightmare n not reality.
What I meant was literal. Real guns, bazookas etc. In our 'sane' society your nightmare is a reality because it is allowed. Big powerful business can and often does destroy or take over smaller ones which are in competition.
wokay. Heres the thing: take the example of a iron box. If my neighbour wants to iron his shirt n he come's n borrows my XYZ ka iron box n i give it to him, XYZ wont come n arrest me! u see the value o the iron box does not become ne less when i share cause i can always use it later on. but say there is this sandwich n my neighbour eats it, then i cant eat it, so i'm obviously gonna be pissed off n wont share that.
An iron box or software is a tool- whereas a sandwich or paintin is a accessories. U do stuff(function) with tools n u jus "enjoy" accessories.
note that the neighbour will eventually get his own iron box when he can afford it n save himself 4rm the discomfort n so XYZ or whoever will make their money. So the idea is that ppl need to see enuf value in what u provide.
<grin> comparing things my friend? </grin> An Iron box does not and cannot exist in two different places at one time. A software can. Which is all the difference.
A friend o mine got this Compaq mac. n he was *FORCED* to have Win on it. cause other wise he would be refused support. You can force ppl in not so obvious wayz. Also the CD that came with it does some wierd partition shit, so that he had to use partion magic to be able to fit Linux into the M$ box. hmm.. I wonder if the CD behaviour has some hidden agenda. You can also force ppl by not givin them choices by killin *all* competion.
What you are calling forcible is not forcible. Compaq, for whatever strategic reason (maybe their notebooks only work with windows :)) have tied up with M$. They are not forcing your friend to buy Compaq at gunpoint. He could as well have got another notebook from another vendor which probably might have had GLinux loaded by default. We make choice according to our needs. And sometimes we have to make compromises for eg. your friend was so desperate for compaq that he excepted it with windows even if he (probably) hates it. Compaq has a right to sell whatever it likes. Even a notebook with bill gate's sticker on it. You dont buy it if you dont like it. Period. Freedom for everyone.
Kent Pitman on the comp.lang.lisp seys: -- snip -- RMS wanted to control the use and realized that public domain did not allow him that control. As I understand it, from personal covnersations with him, he feels there are good and bad uses of things, and specifically wants as much personal control over good guys getting stuff and bad guys not getting it. There is nothing wrong with this. However, there is something peculiar about co-opting the term "free" for this purpose.
In my experience in talking to him, RMS will freely admit that his interests are selfish. Others speaking for him tend to paint his motives as more purist. As I see it, though, and he's as much as said this explicitly in conversations I've had with him, he's just trying to protect his OWN freedom to do certain things he wants to do--he doesn't really worry how that affects others. He seems shamelessly selfish on this point.
Nothing wrong with that either. I just don't plan to vote for him as a saint like others seem to want to.
I had a conversation one day where he criticized the CL HyperSpec for not being "free". I said "what are you talking about? it can be copied at no cost and serves the community well." He said he didn't care that it served the community--that wasn't a goal of his. He was annoyed that HE wasn't allowed to use it in ways HE wanted to. Funny that he felt this was bad since I feel the same about software he writes, except I think it's his right to decide how his software is used, and I'd have expected him to think it was my right to set my own terms. -- snip -- BPT at comp.lang.lisp seys ; -- snip -- I believe that RMS used to prefer public-domain software, along with password-less operating systems (using the Honor System for security). However, once the hackers at MIT were forced out of their AI Lab (either going to Symbolics or losing their funding), they were no longer in a Utopian environment. -- snip --
I appreciate & respect what RMS has done in terms of writing software. But I do not subscribe to his philosophy entirely.
quasi
"The bird or insect that stumbles into a room and cannot find the window. Because they know no 'windows.'" ~The Lord and the New Creatures, Jim Morrison (12/8/43 - 7/3/71)
rather good !!!
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Q u a s i -
Sandeep