[Consortium] fao Paul White: Letter for publication

Steve Harris S.W.Harris at ecs.soton.ac.uk
Tue Jun 21 04:40:31 EDT 2005


Daniel, are you referring to this?
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul05/articles/leader.htm

If so, I dont think he was talking about Free Software, but peoples
expectations around support for software they payed for. However, I agree
he is a little over defensive of the commercial software world.

- Steve

On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 09:30:54AM +0100, Daniel James wrote:
> Hello Paul,
> 
> In your July issue editorial, I think you've unintentionally 
> misrepresented the views of free software developers producing audio 
> and music applications for Linux and other platforms. There are 
> people who think software should be free, but they're not demanding 
> that proprietary software houses give away their creations.
> 
> Instead, they are writing their own software, and giving the source 
> code away - which of course they are perfectly entitled to do. It has 
> practical benefits because software needs active maintenance to 
> remain useful, so the more people who have access to the code, the 
> better. 
> 
> The argument that software and physical property, such as the stuff in 
> your house, are equivalent will always fall on its face. At the end 
> of the day, software is just a bunch of numbers, and what's true for 
> software creators (marginal or zero cost copying) is just as true for 
> software users. 
> 
> Proprietary software companies moan about so-called 'piracy', but in 
> truth they'd rather have an unpaid-for copy of their own software 
> running on your machine than a paid-for copy from their competitor. 
> It's how a particular application becomes a de-facto standard. Every 
> time someone passes a installer CD to their friend, they are 
> participating in viral marketing for that company.
> 
> Hardware prices have fallen dramatically, but proprietary music 
> software is as expensive as ever. I mean, £1450 for a single copy of 
> Nuendo, with known bugs? I'd resent having to pay for bug fix updates 
> too. Is it any wonder that students and musicians are writing their 
> own software?  
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> Daniel James
> 
> 63 School Green Road
> Freshwater
> Isle of Wight
> PO40 9AT
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