🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <23837@santra.UUCP>, mikko@titan.uucp (Mikko Tiusanen) writes:
> In article <5077@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
> >In article <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil>, dsill@ark1.nswc.navy.mil (Dave Sill)
     writes:
> >> First, being required to freely distribute code does not exactly
> >> prevent you from using the compiler.

> >If you're not a private hobbyist or a university (and not even always then)
> >it sure does.

> Could you expand on why this does prevent from using it?

If I'm not a private hobbyist or a university, then what is the purpose of
writing this code? To make a profit off it, of course... either because it
provides a competitive advantage, or because the code (or some system for
which the code is part) is to be sold for profit.

Stallman's Marxist dialectic notwithstanding, if I can't make a profit off
the code (again speaking as a commercial software developer, not as the author
of a popular shareware utility for the Amiga) I'm not going to write it. Since
that's not an option (we gotta eat) then I'll have to use some other compiler.

I'm not saying Stallman should give me GCC. Unlike him, I'm not going to deny
anyone profit (and he does profit from GCC... maybe not directly financially,
but it's only a Marxist fallacy that negotiable goods are the only form of
profit). I'm just explaining why I can't use it.

> Given, of
> course, that as far as I understand, you are allowed to charge
> reasonable copying costs.

How many man-hours do "reasonable copying costs" involve? What about
development costs?
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | "...helping make the world
Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.   `-_-' |  a quote-free zone..."
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