Linux World domination (was Re: [NCLUG] PC for Linux (Ubuntu))

Chad Perrin perrin at apotheon.com
Fri Sep 19 12:57:05 MDT 2008


On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 05:22:30PM -0600, John L. Bass wrote:
> 
> Except that it's far from tongue in check for a fairly large number of 
> folks that follow the Stallman manifesto 
> http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html:
> 
>    *“My company needs a proprietary operating system to get a
>    competitive edge.”*
> 
>    GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of
>    competition. You will not be able to get an edge in this area, but
>    neither will your competitors be able to get an edge over you. You
>    and they will compete in other areas, while benefiting mutually in
>    this one. If your business is selling an operating system, you will
>    not like GNU, but that's tough on you. If your business is something
>    else, GNU can save you from being pushed into the expensive business
>    of selling operating systems.
> 
>    I would like to see GNU development supported by gifts from many
>    manufacturers and users, reducing the cost to each.(5)
>    <http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html#f5>

Please refrain from assuming that every advocate of Free/Libre/Open
Source Software is a Stallman clone who believes that the One True
Operating System is the nonexistent GNU.


> 
> 
>    *“Won't programmers starve?”*
> 
>    I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us
>    cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making
>    faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives
>    standing on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.
> 
>    But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner's
>    implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers
>    cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.
> 
>    The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be
>    possible for them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much
>    as now.

It's funny you quote this, considering it essentially refutes your own
statements to the effect that programmers can't make a living writing
software in an all open source world.

I'd also note that I don't agree programmers would not get paid as much
as they do now.  On the contrary, I believe there would be more money to
go around for programmers in an all open source world, because of the
chilling effects intellectual monopoly power can have on the tech
industry economy by suppressing innovation and favoring market dominating
corporate giants whose primary business model is continued dominance by
crushing the competition (as opposed to performing well, which is not
necessary to such a business model at all).

-- 
Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ]
Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
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