🚀 go-pugleaf

   Date: 31 Jan 91 20:24:49 GMT
   From: jrbd@craycos.com (James Davies)

   In article <GUMBY.91Jan31091900@Cygnus.COM> gumby@Cygnus.COM (David Vinayak Wallace) writes:
   (comparing FSF to a library...)
   >(and I should mention that the free software is better than a library
   >since tax dollars aren't involved!)

   Oh, really?  Then why is it that

	   1. The software is usually distributed over Internet (via FTP)?
	   2. The software is kept on an MIT machine (prep.ai.mit.edu)?
	   3. So many of the contributors work for universities?

   Who *is* paying for these, if not tax dollars?  Does FSF reimburse all of
   the government agencies involved for the use of their facilities and
   employees?

1> Hmm.  Well I xmit and recieve gnu software of the Alternet, a
private-sector internet.

2> Prep is now an athena macine (donated by DEC). It used to be a
surplus vax that nobody wanted because it was useless to the AI lab
(it only ran unix or vms) which was also donated hardware.

3> Many contributors work for private companies.

But these days in the US it's pretty much impossible even to scratch
your ass without a government permit or involvement, so perhaps I will
retract the tax issue.  The real point, that people are actually
judging the GNU project by some sort of double standard still stands.

g