🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <23261@cbmvax.commodore.com> dlarson@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dale Larson) writes:
>In article <9107191747.AA23652@mole.gnu.ai.mit.edu> rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman) writes:
>>Most users think that GNU software is pretty high quality.
>>But it certainly has some weak points which can use improvement.
>>
>>If you feel it is worth paying for better software, how about paying
>>for better free software?  You could pay someone to make the
>>improvement you would like.  Look in etc/SERVICE for a list of service
>>providers you can choose from.
>
>How can one program, no matter how good and how well-maintained, possibly meet
>the different needs, styles, philosophies, etc. of hundreds of millions of text-
>editor users?  I think the point was that, for the good of the users, there 
>must be competing programs.  Right now there doesn't seem to be a likely way 
>for some group to get paid to write a free editor to compete with emacs, and 
>one that costs good money starts with an unfair disadvantage...

	Correct.  Reasonably good, free software can actually discourage
development of better or different software to serve related markets.  Being
able to pay someone for an improvement doesn't cut it, since the cost of the
improvement must be borne by a single person or organization, or you need some
complex way to group people willing to pay smaller amounts so the improvement
is made.  This gets very complex very fast, and if widespread enough might
require a fairly large bureaucracy to administer (something governments
love).  In a competitive business, if there are a sufficient number of people
willing to pay for a feature (or set of features, or entirely different style
of editor), or if the number is arguably close, someone will put one out.  If
there weren't enough people, the person who risked his capital loses, but
the public doesn't lose (they've gotten a product which should have cost more
than it did).

>The issues appear similar as those for socialized medicine.  Currently (in
>the U.S.) medical care is much too expensive, but those who can afford it can
>get good medical care, those who can't don't get any.  Some argue that the
>"morally right" thing is to socialize medicine, and conceed that it would
>result in a different standard of care, but not different enough that we
>should really be concerned.  In the mean time, some doctors have dedicated 
>their lives to treating the poor as best they can, even though it is
>financially difficult for them to do so.  Fortunately, they do get some grants
>and donations.  If a second doctor wanted to serve the same people, however, 
>he'd be crazy to compete for those grants and donations.

	I'm not sure that's a really good analogy, since health care is a
more fundamental and necessary item than software, at least thus far.  Also,
health care is a combination of service (direct personal interaction) and
capital expenditures for equipment, drugs, etc.  Closer might be medical
research.  Other types of intellectual property would make far better examples.
Let's look at books.  What if the writing of books was socialized, and
books were available for merely a copying/printing cost?  This is a FAR
closer analogy, and one that shows fairly clearly the sort of reasons why any
ideas that approach "socializing" software scare the willies out of me.

	A free and healthy competitive software market is by far the best
situation to have, for both programmers and for users.

-- 
Randell Jesup, Jack-of-quite-a-few-trades, Commodore Engineering.
{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com  BIX: rjesup  
Disclaimer: Nothing I say is anything other than my personal opinion.
"No matter where you go, there you are."  - Buckaroo Banzai