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Date:      Sun, 14 May 2000 05:18:09 +0530
From:      Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>
To:        "G. Adam Stanislav" <redprince@redprince.net>
Cc:        Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, W Gerald Hicks <jhix@mindspring.com>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Why are people against GNU? WAS Re: 5.0 already?
Message-ID:  <20000514051809.N22405@physics.iisc.ernet.in>
In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20000513181415.00890300@mail85.pair.com>; from redprince@redprince.net on Sat, May 13, 2000 at 06:14:15PM -0500
References:  <Pine.BSF.4.10.10005130735370.20100-100000@hydrant.intranova.net> <391D4DAD.FD80980A@picusnet.com> <003b01bfbcdc$6059fb40$a164aad0@kickme> <391D71FE.1570F551@asme.org> <20000513205610.A22103@physics.iisc.ernet.in> <3.0.6.32.20000513143506.00895650@mail85.pair.com> <20000514010614.A16058@happy.checkpoint.com> <391DDB3E.8DFFD8D0@mindspring.com> <20000514041848.K22405@physics.iisc.ernet.in> <3.0.6.32.20000513181415.00890300@mail85.pair.com>

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G. Adam Stanislav said on May 13, 2000 at 18:14:15:
> At 04:18 14-05-2000 +0530, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:
> >by borrowing ideas you don't decrease the number of ideas
> >in the world.
> 
> Sure you do! If you expect your ideas to be stolen with no rewards to you,
> soon you will stop coming up with new ideas. Not because you lost your
> ability but because you have no motivation.

In that case, research in universities should have come to a
standstill by now.  It's not "stealing", it's "sharing". 

> This is precisely why former Communist countries were such a failure
> economically. There was no reward for innovation, so there was no
> innovation. Now we see a surge of creativity coming out of there. It was
> not born overnight. It was always there, but it stayed dormant.

Actually they always did well in basic research.  Some of the most
important physics this century came from Russia.  They didn't 
do well technologically because of government-controlled industries
and lack of competition.  Technological improvement comes about when
several companies compete to produce similar products.  Incentives
through patents and royalties can help there up to a point.  But when
it gets to the stage when one is effectively giving a monopoly 
to a company through patents for a basic idea, rather than a specific 
manufactured product design, then one is killing competition and
quality will eventually go out the window.  


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