Re: [linux-audio-user] Re: Free Software vs. Open Source: Where do *you* stand?

On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 09:57 +1100, Ryan Heise wrote: Correct. Most of it written by or for the US government. There is a little in JAMin. What Lee was trying to point out, I believe, is that free software that continues to be free and not taken over by a proprietary company and improved and hidden from you is dependent upon copyright. Would I, as a developer, release my code into the public domain knowing that any company could take it, improve it, sell it, hide it from me, and not give me credit for my work? I doubt it. What you fail to realize is that copyright is not what keeps you from Micro$oft's code, it is trade secret. Copyright only keeps you from legally making a copy of it and not paying for it. If there were no copyright then many software companies would not be in business. In some cases this would be an improvement but in many others it wouldn't. There are companies writing proprietary software that no one in the FOSS community wants to touch. This is the real world not the ideal. Get over it. -- Jan 'Evil Twin' Depner The Fuzzy Dice http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/fuzzy.html "As we enjoy great advantages from the invention of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously." Benjamin Franklin, on declining patents offered by the governor of Pennsylvania for his "Pennsylvania Fireplace", c. 1744