[Consortium] fao Paul White: Letter for publication

[Daniel James]

Hi Andreas, hi Steve,

> But then he writes this: "In fact, there are still those totally
> illogical people who think that all software should be free, no
> matter how much effort has been put into creating it - but that's
> an argument for another day! I'm sure those people wouldn't want to
> leave their front doors open with a 'Help Yourself To All My Stuff'
> sign outside, yet that seems to be exactly what they expect from
> software companies."

Yes, that's the paragraph I was referring to! There's the assumption 
that software developers and software 'consumers' are two distinct 
groups, set up in opposition. 

> this "Editor in Chief" obviously does not even know
> what he is writing about.

He certainly knows a lot about recording technology, but Linux and 
free software are relatively new to the pages of SoS, so I can 
forgive the misunderstanding.

Indeed, there probably are people who refuse to ever pay for 
proprietary software because they are just mean. The same kind of 
people who try to get on the guest list for a benefit gig.

However, I strongly suspect that people complain about paying for 
upgrades to Logic because they don't like the way they have been 
treated by Apple. If I bought a guitar, and it turned out to be 
unplayable because it hadn't been properly tested before leaving the 
factory, then I'd be really upset if I had to pay again just to make 
it work as expected. I'd probably demand that it was fixed for free 
too.

> One could (and should) ask what Sound On 
> Sound has to gain by bashing the Free and Open Source movements.

If we were being cynical we could say that proprietary software 
companies pay a lot to advertise in magazines like SoS, but I really 
don't think that's a factor here. As Steve pointed out, the article 
doesn't specifically mention Free Software, just the idea that 
software should be free.

In my experience SoS is genuinely editorially independent, but you 
have to bear in mind that the contributors have been running 
proprietary music software for 20 years or more. They probably have 
the same confusion as most of their readers between proprietary 
freeware and free software. Or binaries with physical property, for 
that matter. I hope my letter can help clear things up a bit. 

Cheers!

Daniel