🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jan18.074702.26495@alphalpha.com> nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) writes:

   If I take a look at some commercial copyrighted code and then go
   off and write something that does the same thing I run the risk of
   being sued.  Do I run the same risk from GNU software?  Might you
   think I had copied GNU code and so insist on inspecting my code?

Yup.  Whenever I hear of a new packet driver, I always try to get a
copy to see if it contains my code.

   >Instead, your customers would be really happy.  They would fix the
   >program where it chafes them, improve it where they wish it did some
   >simple thing, and probably would send you back their changes (*they*

   The vast, vast, vast majority of computer software customers are *not*
   developers.

Right.  It's the small, small minority of customers who *are* developers
who *do* contribute improvements.  Hell, one of the best things in the
packet drivers (the -n flag) was contributed by someone who didn't really
know any 80x86 assembly -- he was just cutting and pasting!

   >We've been living this story for a couple of years now.  There is a lot
   >to learn and understand in the `free software market'.  Things are not
   >always as you would predict them to be.  But it seems to be true that
   >free software will tend to drive out commercial software, where the two
   >are roughly similar.  Customers simply prefer it.  And as long as you

   Is there a single example of this outside of selling developer tools?

Are the packet drivers developer tools?  Certainly they're *used* by
developers, but end-users need them, too.

--
--russ <nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> I'm proud to be a humble Quaker.
Peace is not the absence of war.  Peace is the presence of a system for
resolving conflicts before war becomes necessary.  War never creates peace.