🚀 go-pugleaf

seajays@my-deja.com wrote:

> 
> Please understand, I really *do* sympathise with you over the problems
> associated with bad software, and I would like to see the law
> strengthened in the related areas to prevent such 'rip-offs' occurring
> and giivng power back to consumers to insist that corrections are made
> when software is not fit for purpose.  But I still must maintain that
> all that can be achieved, without removing fundamental rights of people
> not to have their work copied and used by others for their gain, if
> they so wish.

Your sympathy is noted and understood with gladness, but I still think
you are not addressing the point I am at pains to try to make: that
closed-source software is *by definition* unfit for the purpose it was
sold for.

Furthermore, if I want to be a criminal and steal software or even
copyrighted algorithms of yours you know very well that I don't need the
source code if I am so inclined. So in practical terms I'd say the
fundamental right you are talking about is rather unaffected by all
this. 


> 
> If people want to provide the source code of their creations then that
> is fine - I have no problem with that, but if they don't then that is
> their right and you should not be able to take away that right - just
> don't use the software if you find the conditions unacceptable.
> 

Up until very recently this choice was also imaginary, due to the fact
that any possible concurrents to the dominant OS'es were ruthlessly
absorbed, if they couldn't be financially crushed. 

This I would say is the reason why Open Source software is often
mistakenly assumed to be software that is given away for nothing: In
order to beat corporate skulduggery and produce a suite of tools that
could vie for mainstream status against "that which shall not be named
for fear of a lawsuit", it was necessary to produce it under a framework
that could not be directly financially crippled, so the obvious way was
to make the source available at no cost to the user and incorporate
modifications via a more-or-less centrally-regulated system of
voluntarty contributions. The only real licencing requirement of note is
that the source for the modifications themselves be covered by the same
licencing arrangement.


The software I write is almost exclusively distributed as source alone,
unless a customer has special technical requirements for a binary
distribution, or no access to a compiler in the case of some windows
victims, but It is certainly not gratis.

And quite a decent living I make from it too, as do more and more people
today: reaping the rewards of our own creativity instead of suffering
the taxation of providing added value and leverage to Microsoft
products.


Angus



-- 
It said WinNT 4.0 or better on the box.
So I installed Linux.