Re: OSS in the news

["Eric M. Bennett" <ericb@pobox.com>]

Stan wrote:

>You may recall that my point, back a ways, was that the mudslinger
>and liar often/typically (?) are ultimately discredited and disrespected. I
>never said they didn't reap temporary advantages, nor would I. Clearly
>they often do.

And my point is that in many cases I think they've reaped permanent
advantages overall.  They may be discredited, but their ill-gotten gains
are often not taken back from them.

Anyway, this quickly going off-topic, so I'll shut up now.  :-)

>This is perhaps analogously related to the sort of rewards the OS
>programmer seeks (respect from self and others, and admiration) as
>contrasted with the material rewards many/most (?) commercial ISVs
>seek.

What about the OS programmers that write commercial OSes?  How many OS
programmers working for traditional ISVs as compared to those working on
open source OSes?  In any case, I see nothing wrong with wanting to be paid
a fair amount for your work.  The problem is with people who use dirty
tricks to try to lock people in to their programs so they can hike prices
beyond what people would pay without the dirty tricks.



--
Eric Bennett (http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/)
Cornell University, Field of Biochemistry, 377 Olin Chemistry Lab

I have seen people slower than I am, and more deliberate, and even
quieter, and more listless, and lazier people than I am.  But they
were dead.
-Mark Twain