[NCLUG] Re: NCLUG Digest, Vol 184, Issue 15

[John L. Bass]

yes and no.

Yes, to the part that says the free software is always available, so in 
theory there is choice.

No, to the part that when one group of free software advocates which do 
dominate all others with politcol action, forcing one politically 
correct variant of free software.

So yes, there can be a defacto free software monopoly ... just as with 
any free market proprietary software monopoly, competition is never 
completely eliminated, just made very difficult.

John

Rob Bayerl wrote:
> On 9/18/08, John L. Bass <jbass at dmsd.com> wrote:
>   
>> I do not support those that wish to co-opt the free software movement to
>> be the free monopoly software movement.
>>     
>
> This in itself is illogical.  There can be no monopoly of free
> software, except in the case where there is no choice but to chose
> from free software options.  With free software, the user will always
> have a choice of which software they use; which may or may not use
> differing licenses.  A good example of this is window managers.  GNOME
> and KDE are very different from each other and use different licenses,
> not to mention there are hundreds of other options (which includes no
> window manager at all).  If all software becomes free software, choice
> will always remain.
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