Re: Publicly funded software development (was: KDE v. Gnome)

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Article #1447

#1447

From: Donal K. Fellows
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 00:00

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In article <F0CBvu.oE@a2e.de>, PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de> wrote:
> Therefore even those people who want to buy a computer without any open
> source software on it already have profited from the existence of an open
> source software code base.  Paying 1% would (although needn't) be justified
> in every single case.

While I agree with most of what you have said, I must admit that I
failed to see how this last paragraph quite followed from the others.
Not that a 1% charge towards supporting unencumbered software is a bad
thing necessarily, but I just don't exactly understand how much people
who have a 100% M$ system have benefitted from an open source software
base.  Sure, they *could* (and I would advise them to) but how are
they actually benefitting right now in practical terms[*]?  Inquiring
minds want to know...

Donal.
[* For the sake of argument, say they don't have any kind of internet
   connection - this is definitely the case still for many people, and
   I *am* aware of how involved free software is with the internet. ]
-- 
Donal K. Fellows    http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/    fellowsd@cs.man.ac.uk
Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K. +44-161-275-6137
--
If you staple a penguin to the head of a gnu, the result won't catch herring...

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From: fellowsd@cs.man.ac.uk (Donal K. Fellows)
Subject: Re: Publicly funded software development (was: KDE v. Gnome)
Date: 1998/10/05
Message-ID: <6vakpb$j1h$1@m1.cs.man.ac.uk>
X-Deja-AN: 397919264
References: <F0B8I1.475@a2e.de> <907546762snz@vision25.demon.co.uk> <F0CBvu.oE@a2e.de>
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.
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