19 May
2009
19 May
'09
2:27 p.m.
Bob Ham <rah(a)bash.sh> writes:
On Tue, 2009-05-19 at 10:37 +0200, Fons Adriaensen
wrote:
Even better:
Someone sets up a firm Foo that produces furniture,
appliances, plumbing, etc.
Someone sets up a firm Bar that provides and maintains free furniture,
appliances, plumbing and electricity for anybody's home by using the
prducts of firm Foo.
One day, you come home and find half of your radiators don't work
because someone has started upgrading the plumbing and hasn't finished
yet.
You go to the manager of the firm Foo and tell him:
- Listen, I don't want you to stop the radiators in my house from
working.
- I don't. I have no control with out. Why you dont ask the manager of
firm Bar?
- But you produce it!
- Yes, we produce toxic waste too. There are bacteria that eat it. I'm
affraid the manager of firm Bar got impression that you eat toxic
waste too. I'm sorry about situation. We will improve instructions
about our toxic waste product but still, you have to request Bar to
meet your requirements. Or stop using Bar and use Baz instead.
--
Nedko Arnaudov <GnuPG KeyID: DE1716B0>
Someone sets up a firm that provides a free
service:
they enhance your life by removing things from your
home and disposing of them.
One day I return home and find some things have been
removed.
I go the manager of the free service and tell him:
- Listen, I don't want you to enter my home and
remove things uninvited.
- But then I can't do my job !
- So you are thieves ?
- No, no, no, we just provide a free service
that enhances your life.
I have to say, I think this is really out of line, Fons. Implying free
software developers are theives because they've changed something and
you don't like it is quite extraordinary.
I think a better analogy would be like so:
Someone sets up a firm that provides and maintains free furniture,
appliances, plumbing and electricity for anybody's home.
One day, you come home and find half of your radiators don't work
because someone has started upgrading the plumbing and hasn't finished
yet.
You go to the manager of the free service and tell him:
- Listen, I don't want you to stop the radiators in my house from
working.
- That's fine, you're entirely free to install your own plumbing, or fix
the plumbing we've installed for you.
- I don't want to, you should do it for me and do it right dammit!