Re: [OT] Re: Troll Tech [was Re: Sco vs. IBM]

[Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 07:24:36AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 12:09:10PM +0200, Stephan von Krawczynski wrote:
> > On Fri, 20 Jun 2003 00:12:17 -0300
> > Werner Almesberger <wa@almesberger.net> wrote:
> > > Larry McVoy wrote:
> > > > These discussions always make me wonder if the open source crowd is ever
> > > > going to realize it's reasonable to be friendly with commercial companies.
> > > 
> > > The problem is that you can't trust a company. You may choose to
> > > trust people who control or shape a company, but they may lose
> > > that control, and then all bets are off.
> > 
> > And that is exactly _the_ argument in this whole discussion. There seem to be
> > people out there who want to make a living from _others_ _ancient_ work they
> > bought for small bucks by sueing just about anyone.
> > 
> > GPL has an inherent long-term strategy, you are talking of short-term, Larry.
> > That does not match. If I am using only GPL-software I know I am able to use it
> > as is in five years from now. 
> 
> Actually, my point is about long term strategy and what you think is long
> term I think of as short term.  5 years isn't long term in my book.

I realized after I sent that that maybe the point was too subtle.
Open source is great, I use it, I love it, no problem there.  However,
*if* I'm correct that what is happening is basically a process of copying,
and *if* open source kills off the companies producing the products which
are being copied, then open source slowly grinds to a halt in terms of
creating anything new.

That may well be fine in the minds of many.  Lots of people can't see
past their nose and all they want is free versions of what they have to
pay for today.  What's past their nose is all the new stuff we haven't
seen yet.  Imagine a world without that new stuff.  Just roll back the
world to 5 years ago and think of what you would have lost.
-- 
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Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm