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

[Chad Perrin]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 06:31:03PM -0600, Grant Johnson wrote:
> 
> >That was disappointing.  I agreed with you whole-heartedly in that first
> >sentence, then ran into a wall with your second.
> >
> >Without the code, you don't own *the code*.  This is not the same as not
> >owning the *software*.  If you possess an executable binary free of legal
> >entanglements, you own *the executable binary software*.  If you possess
> >source code free of legal entanglements, you own *the source code*.
> >These are *not* the same thing.
> >
> >  
> If I buy something, I can use it as long as I wish, but, if I rent it, I 
> can use it only as long as the actual owner says I can.   With software, 
> it is like this.   Without the source, I can use it only as long as the 
> vendor supports it.  Therefore, it is a lease.   It is a lease with only 
> one payment, but a lease all the same.

With a vacuum cleaner, you can use it as long as the vendor keeps making
spare parts.  Or, I suppose you could get a lathe, and spend more time,
effort, and money creating spare parts that will probably not be ideal
anyway than you would on buying a new vacuum cleaner.

. . . but you still own the vacuum cleaner.

If you can do whatever you like with what you have, that's basically
ownership.  Getting support for it -- a warranty, software updates,
whatever -- is about *services*, not *sales*.

The real reason it's difficult to actually own software today is
copyright law and how it's enforced.  It's not the fact that you don't
have the source on-hand.


> 
> If I cannot change it, I may not be able to run it on hardware currently 
> available, or on OS's that are currently patched.

Gee, that's a bummer.  I don't see what this has to do with defining
*ownership*, though.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ content licensed PDL: http://pdl.apotheon.org ]
My first programming koan: If a lambda has the ability to access its
context, but there isn't any context to access -- is it still a closure?
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