fons adriaensen <fons.adriaensen(a)skynet.be> writes: Well, then they might have some expectation to be able to use it, no? Without the ability to adapt the software to different devices or applications, or fix errors (or pay someone to do that), the software is crippled in its usefulness. When buying electronic appliances, at one time you could rely on the schematics being in the inside. That meant you could make full use of the appliance, adapt it to different problems (using a radio as a guitar amplifier), repair it and keep it in working order, and you could take it to service men of your choice to have it adapted or fixed. That's basically what workmanship is about: offering the best to the customer to make use of. Just 20 years ago, it was customary to provide computer purchasers or service people with schematics, BIOS listings and similar stuff (partly on request and for payment). Now it is trade secret this, closed source that, not for your eyes this. It is annoying. If I want a Porsche engine in a VW bug, I can buy the parts and all relevant service manuals and plans, and put a mechanic to work. If I want Excel running on GNU/Linux, I can just shoot myself. I am not paying for such crippled software. If that means that I have to do with less sophisticated free software, so be it. It is a price to pay, but at least it keeps me in control and power and responsibility. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

True; buy a licence which includes sources and the right to change it. That's it. But you have to pay an extra fee to get the circuit plans. So if you want to get the source of proprietary software, you have to pay for it, too. At least theoretically. Best regards ce

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006, David Kastrup wrote: Usually software companies take care of fixing the errors themselves. If they fail to fix them then you have the right to get your money back. When you buy some software you certainly know it's only going tor un under some given operating system(s). If you expect anything else it's clearly your fault. The point is that having full schemantics for some hardware device doesn't make you capable to make free copies of the device. It's just a document that makes the device itself more usefull. So to make the schematic usefull you have to buy the actual product. However software source code is not a document. It's the software itself. Having the sources makes you able to improve the code. It also makes it possible to produce competing products very easily. So if you give your source code you very much kiss goodbye to your rights. I think the problem is pretty much the size of the software. In 80's typical BIOS was just tens of pages of paper. Listings of current BIOSes are likely to be thousands of pages. I quess you don't want the BIOS listing but the full BIOS (source) code itself. However these are very different things. When you buy any serious software (other than some el cheapo consumer stuff) you will get full documentation (for some parts of it you will have to buy the SDK). Practically every major software package has all kind of setup files, scripts, plugin/DLL interfaces, built in custom programming/scripting languages and things like that. These docs/tools/interfaces will make it possible to do things you can't even dream to do with a VW bug. Yes. If you don't want to pay anything for software your only choice is to get some morally clean free sofware with no other documentation than the source code. This works well if you are a programmer and have enough spare time to find out how the source code works. However for large majority of computer users this free model doesn't work at all. They simply don't have any capability to modify or even understand the source code. In fact they don't even know what source code means. So they find it easier and cheaper to use evil commercial/proprietary software. It may be morally wrong to produce this kind of software but in practice it's the only way to fund the extra work required to make the software easier to use, to produce the additional documentation and to handle the packaging/marketing/logistic required by this model. This is about 90% of the total effort while writing the software code means just 10%. Best regards, Hannu ----- Hannu Savolainen (hannu(a)opensound.com) http://www.opensound.com (Open Sound System (OSS)) http://www.compusonic.fi (Finnish OSS pages) OH2GLH QTH: Karkkila, Finland LOC: KP20CM

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006, David Kastrup wrote: In practice using "free" software also means that you are using it "for free"? I apologize if this was not the case with you. If you have really paid seomething to the authors of the "free" software packages you are using then I would say your moral is exceptionally high. Some of my (sound/oss) code has been in the kernel under GPL since mid 90's. During all the (10+) years only one person has offered to donate $10. Based on that experience the above "free" vs "for free" statement is correct. Best regards, Hannu ----- Hannu Savolainen (hannu(a)opensound.com) http://www.opensound.com (Open Sound System (OSS)) http://www.compusonic.fi (Finnish OSS pages) OH2GLH QTH: Karkkila, Finland LOC: KP20CM

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006, David Kastrup wrote: May I ask what kind of code you are doing for living? Best regards, Hannu ----- Hannu Savolainen (hannu(a)opensound.com) http://www.opensound.com (Open Sound System (OSS)) http://www.compusonic.fi (Finnish OSS pages) OH2GLH QTH: Karkkila, Finland LOC: KP20CM

On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 14:08 +0100, David Kastrup wrote: This whole discussion was ignited when someone advocated pirating (or stealing, or whatever) commercial software. Lee

Yikes -- I thought the original question concerned the merits/demerits of free, but non-source vs. open-source (obviously free) software. Which is sort of an interesting question. I can see valid arguments on both sides, and personally I feel that context plays an important role. But as an academic I'm now required to yell 'context' whenever possible. Of course the discussion rapidly devolved into the tired old 'commercial vs. other' argument, as usual. By the way, I thought the notion of pirating free software was sort of silly... brad

Jan Depner <eviltwin69(a)cableone.net> writes: You'll be surprised to hear that I don't let my personal choices be dictated by survey. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Jan Depner <eviltwin69(a)cableone.net> writes: Whether I pay for a proprietary operating system or a proprietary operating system emulation is pretty much the same: I don't get native Linux, including all widgetry, performance, interprogram communication and so on. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum