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RE: Then Everything Must Be Free

Comment comment by Anonymous on 23 January 2008

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.

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RE: Then Everything Must Be Free by VnutZ :: NR8

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.)

I think the industry would grind to an ugly halt ... well, more like become cripplingly insane. Just take a look at open source device driver development. Back in the day, the problem was sound cards. Today it's making wireless drivers. If the industry had its software more tied to the hardware, I think interoperability would suffer massively. Many innovations wouldn't get past niche audiences or even be created because it would be cost prohibitive for a manufacturer to gamble programmer time on making their equipment work in different software environments and electrical environments.

The PC made it mainstream not because of Microsoft's DOS, rather it made it mainstream because IBM released all the specifications for it. Anybody could write anything for it and build anything for it. Apple and Amiga products struggled against that because they were so proprietary.

Posted 23 January 2008, Hide, Parent, Reply