🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Jul2.222212.3202@sj.ate.slb.com> poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) writes:
>Before you read this, make sure you understand these are not necessarily my
>opinions. No flames please.
>
>[text by Richard Stallman about his ideas of free software deleted.]

No flames here, either.  First, I like to say that what Richard
Stallman is doing is very noble.  I would like to agree with him
very much.  However, it is a good idea in theory only, much like
that Communism is a good idea in theory.  (Free sharing and
comradship, after all, is what Communism is supposed to be all
about).  I think that without compensating the programmers, we
will lose a lot of bright people as programmers not because the
current programmers will to chose another career with a better
pay, but because we'll never attract any more young people into
the field to make them "fall in love" with programming.  After
all, I would conjecture that the rise in the number of computer
science majors across the US in the last few years is mostly due
to the expected high demand (and pay) for computer programmers.
After all, computer programmers are not what our society conceives
as a "glamorous" job, unlike, as Stallman used as an example in
his paper, musicians.  (At least to the average young person).

Of course, I could be wrong --- just like Communism may still
prevail over Captalism.  But that's not likely to happen within
the next few decades.  This is going to sound pessimistic, but
admit it, us humans (especially the Western culture) are just too
selfish.

BTW, what is your opinion on the appropriateness of this subject 
in comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer?  It's not really a programming
topic, yet it applies to programmers in general.  Is there a more
appropriate newsgroup for this kinds of dicussion?

(C) Copyright 1990 by David Lu (:-)

--
---==lulu@ucrmath==---  just another bewildered college undergraduate.
David T Lu, Amateur Thinker: lulu@ucrmath.ucr.edu, {ucsd, uci}!ucrmath!lulu
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless."
				- Geoffrey James, _The Tao of Programming_