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Then Everything Must Be Free

Comment comment by gnifyus on 22 January 2008

Why is the creation of software any different than the creation or manufacture of anything else that requires skill or effort? I do understand the culture and atmosphere of sharing in the beginning research and discovery stages of any endeavor, but once a creation begins to take shape and have a value for other people, in a capitalist society anyway, the creators should be compensated for it. Unless we are going to have free cars, food, houses, medicine or any other thing that requires effort by someone else, software is something that should earn its market share by nature of its own virtue just like any other thing. This comes with its own price though. If someone charges money for their software, they now are obligated to support it and be responsible for it. The GNU general public license has a statement that clearly states the opposite:

"For the developers' and authors' protection, the GPL clearly explains that there is no warranty for this free software."

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RE: Then Everything Must Be Free by Anonymous :: NR0

a creation begins to take shape and have a value for other people, in a capitalist society anyway, the creators should be compensated for it

Same ol' argument. I never said anyone shouldn't be compensated. Thats entirely not the point...I'm referring to two major points...one, the entire reason that the concept of software was separated from the concept of hardware on the OS level. And second, the reason for the mediocrity of the software development industry is due to its secularization. Think outside the box for a minute (e.g. Microsoft) and imagine a world where Gnu dominated the industry, and OS programmers worked directly for hardware manufacturers...how much further along do you think we'd be right now? What if there were no Microsoft, there the were 100 Apple-like companies that ruled the computing frontier...and when I say "Apple-like" I mean companies that develop hardware and software in-house. (Obviously, I know that their hardware comes from a lot of different places but I referring to the structure more then the actual commodities. The only reason the concept of a virus has ever been successful is the lack of Open Source...I could continue but I'd like to hear more input on this subject.

Posted 23 January 2008, Hide, Parent, Reply