Xavier Drudis Ferran xdrudis@tinet.org wrote: El Wed, May 02, 2001 at 09:26:12PM +0200, josX deia:
Agree 100% Wavering away from RMS mostly results in chaos, does it not ;-) ?
Possibly. RMS has spent a lot of time thinking these things, in a quite rational way, and he is as clever as anyone, so anyone thinking
<...snip to safe bandwith ;-)>
I see we are on the same track. Great.
I am not against making money off of free software to the extent that is reasonable, but I argue it should be seen as being a side-show to the hacker-fun of giving away: what bought pleasure can compete with the satisfaction of having your stuff included in Debian!! :-)) (or better: GNU). Ok, no-one argued with that, but the FSF(E) is for the hacker, so it should be focused on that mind-set, and not on the mind-set of corporate suits I think.
I don't trust the money-bisnis on whatever level, but as long is integrity is maintained there should not be harm. History shows this to be very hard on the middle to long-term. I hope we can do better, because if we can that will be a revolution in itself almost... I fear we can, but who will come after us, or penetrate the system if we are going to get involved in money things, even if it is by suporting a view that gives the corporate world something to work with.
I think we should simply ignore the money issue, and the issue of making money of free software in what the FSF(E) says. It has no meaning for the hackers who make it.
I am repeating myself here, I better stop ;-).
bye Jos ps The basic difference between "the two views" is that I am a bit paranoid of the money world, while others see benifit in including them marginally or more. I may very well be wrong, but more than a marginal inclusion seems off considdering the base of GNU/Linux: hackers who work for freedom and do it for nothing too. So what about maintaining a neutral tone and informative tone when it comes to money (not yelling "free software is to make big $$$!!!", but simply stating what is possible and what not currently), and concentrating on the things that are the core: hackers who give it away.
I still think this will be a tactical error, but not one we can't correct if need be, an maybe things work out nicely, who knows... --