My alternative busines model

[Xavi Drudis Ferran]

El Tue, Dec 03, 2002 at 10:47:39PM +0100, Niall Douglas deia:
> On 3 Dec 2002 at 21:55, Alessandro Rubini wrote:
> 
> > > I don't see selling free software as a viable economic model.
> > 
> > You can't sell information like you sell other goods. It's that
> > simple.
> 
> Software != information. Information in itself can do nothing except 
> through application of wisdom garnered from it. Software OTOH is a 
> tool, a practical thing which can do things for you.
> 
> Therefore software is like a screwdriver, a pump or a tractor (albeit 
> with very low replication costs). It is not like a database, a poem 
> nor a research document.
> 

Software == information ... or more precisely software is a subset of
information (but the limit between software and the rest of
information is so undefined that often it is more practical to just
identify both concepts)

If we don't share this view we can't agree on anything about software. 
I'm sorry. 

What you say about information doing nothing and software doing things 
sounds absurd to me. Software does nothing. Computers do something. 

Just like a machine manual allows you to do things with the machine, 
and a cooking recipe allows you to do things with food and kitchen, 
software allows you to do things with your computer. But recipes, manuals 
and software do nothing by themselves. 

Software, literature and math are in the same category. Physyical products
are in another. The link between the two is observation and action, i.e. :
you.

I've found people who can't separate information from matter before and 
I finally ended up believing it must be some axiomatic system which is 
incompatible with mine at best. 

-- 
Xavi Drudis Ferran
xdrudis at tinet.org