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  From: Alan Kennington <akenning@dog.topology.org>
  To  : Natalia.Ford@dsto.defence.gov.au
  Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 09:51:52 +0930

Re: Just an introductory comment

Natalia,

Your comments on how linux "should" be free etc. sound very much like
the statements of the hippies who went to Nimbin in the early 1970s.
Those hippies are now back in the conventional economy.

Similarly, my statement was not that linux should or should not 
_idealistically_ be free, but rather that it is difficult to make money
from creating free software.
You are not making a living from giving away free software.
Even Richard Stallman has to ask for charity.

Nothing you have said contradicts the notion that you can't make a real
living from giving away free software.
Linux can survive without paid developers (by relying on
charity, hobbyists, students, and left-over software
from failed projects or benevolent organisations), but my
statement was that _developers_ can't survive merely by writing
free software. I.e. you have to charge someone for something
somewhere along the line.

Cheerio,
Alan Kennington.

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