From owner-freebsd-newbies Mon Jul 9 12:47:10 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from odin.acuson.com (odin.acuson.com [157.226.230.71]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D2D6B37B405 for ; Mon, 9 Jul 2001 12:47:07 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from djohnson@acuson.com) Received: from acuson.com ([157.226.46.72]) by odin.acuson.com (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with ESMTP id AAA339D; Mon, 9 Jul 2001 12:53:32 -0700 Message-ID: <3B4A0A35.30292D4C@acuson.com> Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2001 12:47:01 -0700 From: David Johnson Organization: Acuson X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: jgnovak Cc: "'freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org'" Subject: Re: Questions References: <3607D767B8E1D311A24F0008C7590A960916CD26@ntexchange07.micron.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org jgnovak wrote: > > Ok, got to get on my soap box. > > Proprietary software is evil when: > a) it costs a lot of money > b) it costs a lot of money and is full of 'bugs' > c) is costs a lot of money and is full of 'bugs' and they deny it > d) is costs a lot of money and is full of 'bugs' and the deny it, and they > try to squish less expensive or free software > developers that make a superior product. > e) all of the above > > I answered 'e' to this question Since every category you list includes "costs a lot of money", I'll stick with discussing A. By "lots" I assume that you mean either it cost more money than you are willing to pay or that it cost more than what you consider a "just" price. Wake up, smell the coffee, and look reality in the face. Most things in life cost more than you are willing to pay. Get over it. Realize that you do not have to buy them. I am aware of no proprietary software that is necessary to your life, liberty or _pursuit_ of happiness. You can always make do with something else or even forgo the category completely. And the concept of a "just" price in economics is a medieval concept. Pick up some more modern economic texts, like circa 1500 or later. I can think of lots of possibly valid reasons why proprietary software might be evil, but monetary cost is not one of them. Consider the monetary cost for Internet Exploder... David To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message