From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Apr 19 13:35:18 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from lariat.org (lariat.org [12.23.109.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C84A37B42C for ; Thu, 19 Apr 2001 13:35:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from brett@lariat.org) Received: from mustang.lariat.org (IDENT:ppp0.lariat.org@lariat.org [12.23.109.2]) by lariat.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA01561; Thu, 19 Apr 2001 14:34:49 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010419142203.046206d0@localhost> X-Sender: brett@localhost X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 14:29:46 -0600 To: Mike Meyer From: Brett Glass Subject: Re: Stallman now claims authorship of Linux Cc: Mike Meyer , Terry Lambert , trevor@jpj.net (Trevor Johnson), freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <15071.17950.439066.927510@guru.mired.org> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010419140150.045176b0@localhost> <200104191845.LAA17455@usr09.primenet.com> <15070.54826.847491.916792@guru.mired.org> <4.3.2.7.2.20010419140150.045176b0@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 02:10 PM 4/19/2001, Mike Meyer wrote: >> Not true. Commercial software does not destroy markets or reduce >> programmers to the status of wage slave. > >Try contracting for MicroSoft. Most of Microsoft's contractors were recently ruled by a court to be de facto employees, and therefore entitled to stock options and other benefits. But in most cases, contracting IS a treadmill. This is why it pays to license commercially useful software rather than creating it as a work for hire. >You build capital as a programmer under conditions D, E and F the >exact same way you do in all those other fields, working under those >conditions. Not so. The small businessperson on other fields can create and build capital by growing a business rather than being a wage slave. Even as an employee, one can do so via profit-sharing and equity in the company. Of course, if you create GPLed software, you cannot do that. Ditto if your company creates GPLed software. This is the reason why companies such as Red Hat are not viable; they do not own the software of which they sell copies. And the market value of what they sell (other than the vanishingly small value of the pressed disk and book) is zero, becaus anyone can cquire it for free. Not a good basis for a business. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message