LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Ford, Natalia (DEO) <Natalia.Ford@dsto.defence.gov.au>
  To  : LinuxSA <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 12:18:59 +0930

RE: Just an introductory comment

Alan, 

> 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.
> 
	Well, I am a hippie.  Not really.  That sounds to me like a defence.
I understand the value of capitalism and making money out of software.  I
just don't see why Linux.  

> 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.
> 
	That sounds rather patronising, quite frankly.  I realise you have
to make money out of software.  I was disputing the fact that it should be
Linux.  I mean what are the copyright laws for Linux?  None.  You can't
copyright it as a whole but if you use the knowledge to develop other
software is that a breach of intellectual property copyright?  I don't think
so.  The kernel should always be free as a bird (sorry pardon the sarcastic
hippie remark).  That will be the only way we will learn about development -
when we are unrestricted.  Suppose Linux was only partially free.  It
wouldn't be Linux at all, because someone along the line would have placed
so many restrictions on it, it would probably end up looking like W98 (I
hope that never happens).  Linux is an experiment therefore money but in
particular time should be thrown at it .  Of course you can always go into
business consulting on how to use Linux, writing manuals on Linux, etc. 

	If I write a program like say Internet Explorer and sell it say as
part of W98 but tell people they are not being charged then I am invariably
making money out of free software.  It's like giving away a freebie.  Costs
get absorbed somewhere along the lines on quantity shifted if I work my
percentages out right and I can make money out of teaching people how to use
it.  How does that help an experimental O/S such as Linux?  Well eventually,
the freebie becomes so powerful through the lack of restriction that we can
all make money out of it.  It is called a complementary demand of a
particular good.  So if someone asks me to write an on-line manual better
than the man pages (that is one which exists outside of Linux and into which
i can import part of Linux - sort of along the lines of what Toby said) than
I do believe I would be free to make money out of that.  I would have to
consult a lawyer first of course, but pay him by giving him a copy of Linux
with my newly improved on-line manual.  But Linux has to be unrestricted for
a bit longer before it is so powerful it will be worth a lot in
complementary goods for which we can all go into competition for.  The
benefit will be that Linux will have actually stood the test time and actual
users and therefore be a very strong presence in the O/S market.  

> Cheerio,
	Natalia Ford 

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