[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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