The documented in-memory format for dialog boxes up to Win '98 (the last version I programmed for) was totally wrong in MSDN. I spent weeks on that (dynamically creating forms under Forth so there wasn't much chance of getting MS to help!).
More of a documentation error than a bug but it had the same effect on my sanity!
A lot of people are saying "remember the Pentium ID" or "remember Clipper" etc as evidence that this isn't going to happen.
Well, folks, something happened on the 11th of September that changed the rules here. It was on TV so you've probably heard about it.
"Why of course the people don't want war...
It is the leaders who determine the policy and
it is always a simple matter to drag the people along...
all you have to do is tell them they are being attacked
and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger. It works the same
in any country."
Hermann Goering said that and I think we can all agree that he had some insight on the issue. It applies to more than "hot" war and to more than just governments' propaganda.
And with this guy, it's clear that you're getting nothing but pure 100% pro-Linux opinion
Tom is pro-linux but the article lays out his thinking is a reasonable, logical way. What part of that chain of logic do you feel is invalidated by mis-spelling Microsoft?
One flaw in your argument is that "fair" means never deciding anything. If I weigh up the OS options and say "This one is a trap to suck money out of me and this one isn't but is harder to use" what exactly is your problem with that?
Having made an informed choice is not automatically the same as being biased.
Okay, I was really talking about "real" movies with actors, directors etc. but, yes, anything by Warhol is a waste of celuloid/paint/wigs.
The Conqueror
Don't know it.
Dracula (1931 US Version)
Come on, that has an armadillo in it! That's much better than Solaris.
The rest are all much less tedious (even Ep I) than Solaris and at least try to be entertaining. One of the annoying aspects of Solaris is its determination to be intellectual while avoidng any crassness such as interest or entertainment.
Titanic: No story, no acting and an insult to both the intelligence and the event it claimed to be based on.
FotR: total turkey, particularly as an adaptation. Lowlights include: No character development for Frodo at all, Break-dancing wizards, Being rescued by the Balrog, Balancing huge stone pillars by leaning from side to side, Continuity errors, Miscasting of Boromer and Aragon, The Shire's dancing mountains, the Keystone Nazgul (warning: highly inflamable), total waste of Loth Lorien (why have development when you can get on to the next fight scene?), and on top of that it had the nerve to steal material from the Bakshi version which wasn't in the book after badmouthing Bakshi's efforts.
Solaris: Tried three times now to watch it. Nothing happens and it takes a long time to not happen. Very, very dire.
2001: Very good, especially if you cut 5 mins out of the "flying across coloured landscapes" sequence near the end.
I think you'll gain some insight from the way each film treats the theme of what it means to be human when faced with the incomprehensibility of the universe.
Solaris gave me some insight into what it means to have a human mind with no stimulus.
Than the original film version which has to be one of the five worst films ever made along with Titanic, FotR (mostly in disapointment levels), Highlander 2, and... er. No, actually, I think Solaris must be one of the four worst films ever made because I can't think of four that are at least as bad.
Would he prefer that McAffee, having found a vulnerability, would inform only the manufacturers of JPEG readers of the problem
If you read the article you would know that there is no problem with JPEG readers.
Would he prefer that people ignore security holes that are only "theoretical vulnerabilities"?
If you read the article you would know that this isn't even a theoretical vunerablility in JPEG. The statement from McA boils down to "If you get a virus it might change some of your files; some of them might be JPEGs!".
Can you think of an application for a virus that can only spread to systems it's already on?
Guy Fawkes was tortured until he revealed the names of his co-conspirators (and those of a few innocent men too, just to make up the numbers), then hanged, drawn and quartered.
Well, I think OBL can look forward to the torture but I admit that the rest is unlikely.
He is, however, the only 17th century political figure with his own parties 400 years later.
William III is pretty well supported for parties in NI and parts of Scotland, although he's still got a bit to go for the 400th anniversary.
Doesn't the Lord Protector Cromwell have a few parades in his honor in Northern Ireland ?
I'm from Northern Ireland and I've never heard anyone there have a good word for Cromwell on any side. He does figure in some parades but not as the main object.
I doubt it! Assuming they ever find the bastard I think it might be one of those "difficult" arrests that involve falling down the stairs a few times and having to be "forcibly restrained".
The ORA article which is supposed to answer the accusation that Free Software can't make money boils down to "Of course it can't, but you can become a tech support company instead". Well, why bother with writing the software then? I could make money doing support for MS's buggy crap.
As ever, the hole in the equation is what happens to programmers that produce high quality software that doesn't need a lot of support? They're screwed by the GPL model. "Thanks for the work and the nice product, now piss off."
The GPL is of no import to programmers working inside large organisations as redistribution is largly unimportant and programmers working on their own are forbidden from making money (in reality, that is - the GPL allows the programmer to charge for their work much in the same way that I'm allowed to try to sell my 5 old car for more than I paid for it).
It is perhaps, as someone else said, just a case of "That's the new situation - adapt or die" but the GNU world is not a better situation for programmers, particularly those with original ideas who have no hope of ever being rewarded by people who find their ideas useful.
We need a new, fairer, way of distributing software. It should be the right of all users to have the source code, but it should also be the right of all authors to control the distribution of their work free from persecution from (rich) fanatics like RMS or exploitation by (hyper rich) bastards like Bill Gates.
Alas, I don't know what that way might be. But I'm working on it.
Why does Shrek keep getting awards? Monsters Inc was better in every department: acting, story, animation (much better than Shrek), design, originality....
I posted this response logged in, so you could email me if you wish;... I am actively trying to learn the skills and come up with ideas to prosper in the (g)new era, and I'd be happy to share my ideas.
Well, let's share them with everyone for now;)
My intent is not to question the GPL from the point of view of a programmer that takes GPL'd software and builds on it. In that context the GPL is fine by me, if you want to use someone else's code then you'll have to abide by their restrictions.
The issue of not writing software based on GNU code is irrelivant to me as I've never done it nor intend to do it; not being a C programmer makes this easy.
The circle I'm trying to square is the maker of original software that wishes to devote their working life to the production of high-quality, well documented programs which are distributed in source form.
On the one hand the GPL is useless for this person, on the other RMS will rant and rave at anyone that uses the software unless the user is free to profit from it in exactly the same way as the author.
One reply to this is "Sod RMS and just do it", but when things like BitKeeper crop up and people start hassling the author because of what RMS has said then it's a concern for anyone else that is thinking of entering the software business. Note that I don't actually like McVoy's licence terms but the principle is the vocal opposition of non-GPL-compatible licences of any sort.
The bottom line is that there are lots of companies making money by selling closed-source programs and none doing it with open-source programs (not libraries) that I know of.
I simply do not see the distinction between being paid to write software and making money selling software; if I make enough money selling software I'll hire someone to do the sales for me, that doesn't mean that I'm no longer making money from selling the software. In the corporate setting my wages pay for the code I've sold to the company that week, or in expectation of software I will sell to them during my period of employment. It's still making money from selling my work.
If you have nothing they want to pay you for, you will have to go into another line of work besides computers.
The issue for the GPL-author is that if you have something they want they still don't have to pay you so long as someone else has the code and doesn't want paid. Every sale of GPLd code undermines the author's market. The same is true of non-GPL'd code but in that case the undermining is illegal and action can take place at least in theory.
Why should the entire nation be prevented from doing certain things with computers (i.e, distributing what you wrote) ?
Why should they be allowed? They're not allowed to do that with any other creative work and even the GPL is based on such copyright laws. I have no interest in extending the current, or rather the pre-DMCA, laws - they were quite good and reached a decent balance.
if the monopoly on copyright for your code is not enforcable except through RIAA style locks on all digital devices,
That is not the cost. That is the cost of forcing users the pay for every copy of a work that they have for personal use. The pirating issue is just an excuse to squeeze more cash out of non-pirates in the same way that region codes on DVD's are just a cartel's way of fixing prices. Users have never had free rein to distribute to others without permission and that seems fair enough to me.
Similarly, you are not being denied the ability to make money from designing and writing software
Technically, this is true. In practice RMS has made it clear that pressure will be brought to bear on anyone that does not accept the three principles of freedom to modify, freedom to distribute, and free access to source code;. My beef is with the second one of these, and only the second, and I would normally choose to release any new, original software without it. Doing so would lead, if the software becomes popular, to being branded an enemy of the Free Software Movement, and I don't see that it's true, or that it's right that this should happen.
My ideas about how the industry will look in a few years when GNU is really taking over
GNU can never take over the industry as it can not sustain the industry's basic unit - the programmer - in any numbers. Projects which take a year to carry through can be paid for from savings but if there's no chance that the market will pay a fair price for the finised article, who would bother?
Relying on everyone scratching their own itches is not going to motivate people like the one in my original example and yet they are exactly the sort of people that many industries need: experienced in the industry and interested in producing a software product based on that experience which could help the industry. If people like that can not see any reward for their efforts then most software will address current and immediate issues and revolutionary ideas and visionary software will be stiffled.
Is the choice facing programers "Be poor but ethical or professional and evil"?
That's interesting; they're using the "viral" nature of the GPL to create a market for the non-GPL'd version. Only works when there's other code to "infect", though. A stand-alone package couldn't easily do this, could it?
the software you describe is, like all software, infinitely copyable, and you'll get some money from some people, and large numbers of others will simply not pay.
The ability to set the law on people is not insignificant in the example of a niche application that is only going to be seriously used by companies who will not want to be sued. It doesn't matter if the warez-kiddies pass it around as they were never the market in the first place. However, the GPL makes it impossible to stop even the target market screwing you.
The truth is that even in the corporate world very few people do what you described.
So are you saying that the way things are done at the moment is as good as it can get and there's nothing FSF, RMS, Linus, or anyone can do about it? If so I think you might be right.
Hundreds of thousands of people are paid to write software, but actually very few make money selling software.
A lot of people write books but no one expects them to do it for free even in the bright new digital age. It is, however, one possible future for writers and the same question will face them: "Why are we discriminated against in this new age?"
This is the crux of the matter and the flaw in your argument that the GPL just formalizes this discrimination. The GPL does more than that, it actually creates the discrimination by removing the authors right to say "if you use my work, pay me". It attempts to replace it with "if you use the community (of programmers) work, pay us in kind". Unfortunately, "kind" doesn't put food on the table. In this sense the GPL is actively unfair to programmers because it gives the right to make money off their time and effort to everyone who comes into contact with it. As I say, in the digital future this is going to be an issue for writers of books too.
If you want to survive in the digital age by writing useful software, you have to talk to people, convince them it is useful, convince them to believe you by having your previous predictions of useful products come out true, be attentive to their needs, etc.
And where does the money appear in this?
The idea that you can work for years and then expect me to pay you money is stupid.
The idea that people will produce useful things for free is pretty stupid to me. They will, and do, produce some things but there is an obvious problem with larger projects that take a sigificant portion of a working year.
f you want me to pay you money, you better talk to me before you get to work.
Why? When you are shopping and see a new product you like do you just go home and write a letter to the manufacturer saying "I would have bought your product if only you had consulted me first"? Of course not.
Or maybe you can find a patron like Michelangelo did for the Sistine Chapel; which, by the way, I can look at anytime I choose without paying, on the web.
I think the copyright has run out on that by now. Seriously, though, the patron system of that period did give freedom to artists but it is based on the fact that only one person can own the artwork at a time. The Sistine Chapel may have been open to the public but it need not have been. When only one person owns the product then it is fair enough that they pay the whole cost. Our modern markets, particularly in software, are based on the fact that most projects are not paid off by their first sale; the personal computer would not exist today if Woz and Jobs, or dozens of others, had needed a visionary and rich patron to get them going.
society is under no obligation to subsidize your particular work-alone style of software production with a monopoly;
I'm not asking for subsidy, I'm asking for pay. A susidy implies that the cost outweighs the value; that's not what I'm talking about at all.
society couldn't to that if they wanted to due to the nature of the digital medium
Society can and does give me the tools to to it (copyright laws), why should a programmer not have the same rights that anyone else has? You are arguing that practical issues make it impossible to force payment from everyone that uses my code; that's true but the GPL additionally make it impossible for me to force payment from anyone beyond the first user.
if society could and did want to, it's a bad way to make software so we shouldn't;
On the contrary, it's the best way to make new software with totally new ideas and approaches.
finally, it is your job to figure out how to make a living, just because you presented an implausible plan for it doesn't reflect any fault of the GNU project.
In the framework of the topic (RMS's issues with Bitkeeper) the GNU project IS the problem. The implausability is caused by RMS's insistance that providing the source code must include giving the right to profit from that source code. This is the killer for any real industry of independant programmers who wish to live off their work while allowing their users to have control of the software they have bought for their own use.
The universe is what it is, and it will not change so your hypothetical programmer makes money
The universe is neither here nor there; laws and morals can and do change to accomodate people's changing desires and aspirations. I can make money designing colour schemes for houses; why am I to be denied the ability to make money from desiging and writing software simply because I think the user should get the source code?
But doesn't it strike you as bizarre that someone like myself with a quarter of a century's experience in what is supposed to be one of the key skills of the new industrial age is being told that the only applications of that skill is to either do it as a hobby or find some way of tagging along with someone that does something else?
The idea that you keep the day job and work as a hobbyist is an old and honorable one that inventors have been doing for years. But when such an inventor hits the jackpot with, for example, the wind-up radio they can exploit the success and start being inventors full-time. That is not an option in the world of the GPL: the jackpot only gives you the option to go and do something else (distribution, support etc). Does that seem to make sense to you?
Dual-license it in the same vein as Ghostscript. Pay for the latest version; older versions are GPL'd.
This is the most promising approach but, for the purposes of this discussion, has one big flaw: RMS. Imagine you've just written the first ever Ghostscript and you release it under a propriety license, intending to GPL in a year. The next day/. reports it and RMS releases a statement saying that it's not free and so should be deleted from every hard drive before it can brainwash everyone into thinking non-free software is acceptable. Sheesh!
For anybody who, like Stallman, believes that using free software is necessary to maintain our freedom , the question of how the programmer should make a living becomes a irrelevant
That's an ivory-tower argument. It is not irrelevant if the programmer starves, neither to the users of a good product nor least of all to the programmer!
Slashdot Mirror
More of a documentation error than a bug but it had the same effect on my sanity!
TWW
Well, folks, something happened on the 11th of September that changed the rules here. It was on TV so you've probably heard about it.
Hermann Goering said that and I think we can all agree that he had some insight on the issue. It applies to more than "hot" war and to more than just governments' propaganda.
TWW
Tom is pro-linux but the article lays out his thinking is a reasonable, logical way. What part of that chain of logic do you feel is invalidated by mis-spelling Microsoft?
One flaw in your argument is that "fair" means never deciding anything. If I weigh up the OS options and say "This one is a trap to suck money out of me and this one isn't but is harder to use" what exactly is your problem with that?
Having made an informed choice is not automatically the same as being biased.
TWW
Okay, I was really talking about "real" movies with actors, directors etc. but, yes, anything by Warhol is a waste of celuloid/paint/wigs.
The Conqueror
Don't know it.
Dracula (1931 US Version)
Come on, that has an armadillo in it! That's much better than Solaris.
The rest are all much less tedious (even Ep I) than Solaris and at least try to be entertaining. One of the annoying aspects of Solaris is its determination to be intellectual while avoidng any crassness such as interest or entertainment.
TWW
FotR: total turkey, particularly as an adaptation. Lowlights include: No character development for Frodo at all, Break-dancing wizards, Being rescued by the Balrog, Balancing huge stone pillars by leaning from side to side, Continuity errors, Miscasting of Boromer and Aragon, The Shire's dancing mountains, the Keystone Nazgul (warning: highly inflamable), total waste of Loth Lorien (why have development when you can get on to the next fight scene?), and on top of that it had the nerve to steal material from the Bakshi version which wasn't in the book after badmouthing Bakshi's efforts.
Solaris: Tried three times now to watch it. Nothing happens and it takes a long time to not happen. Very, very dire.
2001: Very good, especially if you cut 5 mins out of the "flying across coloured landscapes" sequence near the end.
I think you'll gain some insight from the way each film treats the theme of what it means to be human when faced with the incomprehensibility of the universe.
Solaris gave me some insight into what it means to have a human mind with no stimulus.
TWW
TWW
If you read the article you would know that there is no problem with JPEG readers.
Would he prefer that people ignore security holes that are only "theoretical vulnerabilities"?
If you read the article you would know that this isn't even a theoretical vunerablility in JPEG. The statement from McA boils down to "If you get a virus it might change some of your files; some of them might be JPEGs!".
Can you think of an application for a virus that can only spread to systems it's already on?
TWW
Why don't you go spend the EIGHT dollars to see the movie in all its wonder...
Because I saw the last movie in all its wonder.
So why did you bother downloading the film? Methinks being a cheap-ass thief has more to do with it than being uninterested in seeing the film.
TWW
Well, I think OBL can look forward to the torture but I admit that the rest is unlikely.
He is, however, the only 17th century political figure with his own parties 400 years later.
William III is pretty well supported for parties in NI and parts of Scotland, although he's still got a bit to go for the 400th anniversary.
TWW
I'm from Northern Ireland and I've never heard anyone there have a good word for Cromwell on any side. He does figure in some parades but not as the main object.
TWW
What? Ripping off artists?
"I want to read your work, but you'd better not start thinking about getting paid!"
TWW
I doubt it! Assuming they ever find the bastard I think it might be one of those "difficult" arrests that involve falling down the stairs a few times and having to be "forcibly restrained".
TWW
TWW
As ever, the hole in the equation is what happens to programmers that produce high quality software that doesn't need a lot of support? They're screwed by the GPL model. "Thanks for the work and the nice product, now piss off."
The GPL is of no import to programmers working inside large organisations as redistribution is largly unimportant and programmers working on their own are forbidden from making money (in reality, that is - the GPL allows the programmer to charge for their work much in the same way that I'm allowed to try to sell my 5 old car for more than I paid for it).
It is perhaps, as someone else said, just a case of "That's the new situation - adapt or die" but the GNU world is not a better situation for programmers, particularly those with original ideas who have no hope of ever being rewarded by people who find their ideas useful.
We need a new, fairer, way of distributing software. It should be the right of all users to have the source code, but it should also be the right of all authors to control the distribution of their work free from persecution from (rich) fanatics like RMS or exploitation by (hyper rich) bastards like Bill Gates.
Alas, I don't know what that way might be. But I'm working on it.
TWW
TWW
There's no reason for any anti-virus vendor to bother starting their own viruses.
Apart from the money, that is.
There are just too many kiddies willing to do it for free.
Look at the list of known viruses for these programs some time, they are HUGE. That needs a lot of people who are mostly well beyond skiddie level.
TWW
But is he? What if the Chancellor isn't the Emperor-to-be? Eh?
TWW
TWW
Well, let's share them with everyone for now ;)
My intent is not to question the GPL from the point of view of a programmer that takes GPL'd software and builds on it. In that context the GPL is fine by me, if you want to use someone else's code then you'll have to abide by their restrictions.
The issue of not writing software based on GNU code is irrelivant to me as I've never done it nor intend to do it; not being a C programmer makes this easy.
The circle I'm trying to square is the maker of original software that wishes to devote their working life to the production of high-quality, well documented programs which are distributed in source form.
On the one hand the GPL is useless for this person, on the other RMS will rant and rave at anyone that uses the software unless the user is free to profit from it in exactly the same way as the author.
One reply to this is "Sod RMS and just do it", but when things like BitKeeper crop up and people start hassling the author because of what RMS has said then it's a concern for anyone else that is thinking of entering the software business. Note that I don't actually like McVoy's licence terms but the principle is the vocal opposition of non-GPL-compatible licences of any sort.
The bottom line is that there are lots of companies making money by selling closed-source programs and none doing it with open-source programs (not libraries) that I know of.
I simply do not see the distinction between being paid to write software and making money selling software; if I make enough money selling software I'll hire someone to do the sales for me, that doesn't mean that I'm no longer making money from selling the software. In the corporate setting my wages pay for the code I've sold to the company that week, or in expectation of software I will sell to them during my period of employment. It's still making money from selling my work.
If you have nothing they want to pay you for, you will have to go into another line of work besides computers.
The issue for the GPL-author is that if you have something they want they still don't have to pay you so long as someone else has the code and doesn't want paid. Every sale of GPLd code undermines the author's market. The same is true of non-GPL'd code but in that case the undermining is illegal and action can take place at least in theory.
Why should the entire nation be prevented from doing certain things with computers (i.e, distributing what you wrote) ?
Why should they be allowed? They're not allowed to do that with any other creative work and even the GPL is based on such copyright laws. I have no interest in extending the current, or rather the pre-DMCA, laws - they were quite good and reached a decent balance.
if the monopoly on copyright for your code is not enforcable except through RIAA style locks on all digital devices,
That is not the cost. That is the cost of forcing users the pay for every copy of a work that they have for personal use. The pirating issue is just an excuse to squeeze more cash out of non-pirates in the same way that region codes on DVD's are just a cartel's way of fixing prices. Users have never had free rein to distribute to others without permission and that seems fair enough to me.
Similarly, you are not being denied the ability to make money from designing and writing software
Technically, this is true. In practice RMS has made it clear that pressure will be brought to bear on anyone that does not accept the three principles of freedom to modify, freedom to distribute, and free access to source code;. My beef is with the second one of these, and only the second, and I would normally choose to release any new, original software without it. Doing so would lead, if the software becomes popular, to being branded an enemy of the Free Software Movement, and I don't see that it's true, or that it's right that this should happen.
My ideas about how the industry will look in a few years when GNU is really taking over
GNU can never take over the industry as it can not sustain the industry's basic unit - the programmer - in any numbers. Projects which take a year to carry through can be paid for from savings but if there's no chance that the market will pay a fair price for the finised article, who would bother?
Relying on everyone scratching their own itches is not going to motivate people like the one in my original example and yet they are exactly the sort of people that many industries need: experienced in the industry and interested in producing a software product based on that experience which could help the industry. If people like that can not see any reward for their efforts then most software will address current and immediate issues and revolutionary ideas and visionary software will be stiffled.
Is the choice facing programers "Be poor but ethical or professional and evil"?
TWW
TWW
The ability to set the law on people is not insignificant in the example of a niche application that is only going to be seriously used by companies who will not want to be sued. It doesn't matter if the warez-kiddies pass it around as they were never the market in the first place. However, the GPL makes it impossible to stop even the target market screwing you.
The truth is that even in the corporate world very few people do what you described.
So are you saying that the way things are done at the moment is as good as it can get and there's nothing FSF, RMS, Linus, or anyone can do about it? If so I think you might be right.
Hundreds of thousands of people are paid to write software, but actually very few make money selling software.
A lot of people write books but no one expects them to do it for free even in the bright new digital age. It is, however, one possible future for writers and the same question will face them: "Why are we discriminated against in this new age?"
This is the crux of the matter and the flaw in your argument that the GPL just formalizes this discrimination. The GPL does more than that, it actually creates the discrimination by removing the authors right to say "if you use my work, pay me". It attempts to replace it with "if you use the community (of programmers) work, pay us in kind". Unfortunately, "kind" doesn't put food on the table. In this sense the GPL is actively unfair to programmers because it gives the right to make money off their time and effort to everyone who comes into contact with it. As I say, in the digital future this is going to be an issue for writers of books too.
If you want to survive in the digital age by writing useful software, you have to talk to people, convince them it is useful, convince them to believe you by having your previous predictions of useful products come out true, be attentive to their needs, etc.
And where does the money appear in this?
The idea that you can work for years and then expect me to pay you money is stupid.
The idea that people will produce useful things for free is pretty stupid to me. They will, and do, produce some things but there is an obvious problem with larger projects that take a sigificant portion of a working year.
f you want me to pay you money, you better talk to me before you get to work.
Why? When you are shopping and see a new product you like do you just go home and write a letter to the manufacturer saying "I would have bought your product if only you had consulted me first"? Of course not.
Or maybe you can find a patron like Michelangelo did for the Sistine Chapel; which, by the way, I can look at anytime I choose without paying, on the web.
I think the copyright has run out on that by now. Seriously, though, the patron system of that period did give freedom to artists but it is based on the fact that only one person can own the artwork at a time. The Sistine Chapel may have been open to the public but it need not have been. When only one person owns the product then it is fair enough that they pay the whole cost. Our modern markets, particularly in software, are based on the fact that most projects are not paid off by their first sale; the personal computer would not exist today if Woz and Jobs, or dozens of others, had needed a visionary and rich patron to get them going.
society is under no obligation to subsidize your particular work-alone style of software production with a monopoly;
I'm not asking for subsidy, I'm asking for pay. A susidy implies that the cost outweighs the value; that's not what I'm talking about at all.
society couldn't to that if they wanted to due to the nature of the digital medium
Society can and does give me the tools to to it (copyright laws), why should a programmer not have the same rights that anyone else has? You are arguing that practical issues make it impossible to force payment from everyone that uses my code; that's true but the GPL additionally make it impossible for me to force payment from anyone beyond the first user.
if society could and did want to, it's a bad way to make software so we shouldn't;
On the contrary, it's the best way to make new software with totally new ideas and approaches.
finally, it is your job to figure out how to make a living, just because you presented an implausible plan for it doesn't reflect any fault of the GNU project.
In the framework of the topic (RMS's issues with Bitkeeper) the GNU project IS the problem. The implausability is caused by RMS's insistance that providing the source code must include giving the right to profit from that source code. This is the killer for any real industry of independant programmers who wish to live off their work while allowing their users to have control of the software they have bought for their own use.
The universe is what it is, and it will not change so your hypothetical programmer makes money
The universe is neither here nor there; laws and morals can and do change to accomodate people's changing desires and aspirations. I can make money designing colour schemes for houses; why am I to be denied the ability to make money from desiging and writing software simply because I think the user should get the source code?
TWW
TWW
The idea that you keep the day job and work as a hobbyist is an old and honorable one that inventors have been doing for years. But when such an inventor hits the jackpot with, for example, the wind-up radio they can exploit the success and start being inventors full-time. That is not an option in the world of the GPL: the jackpot only gives you the option to go and do something else (distribution, support etc). Does that seem to make sense to you?
TWW
This is the most promising approach but, for the purposes of this discussion, has one big flaw: RMS. Imagine you've just written the first ever Ghostscript and you release it under a propriety license, intending to GPL in a year. The next day /. reports it and RMS releases a statement saying that it's not free and so should be deleted from every hard drive before it can brainwash everyone into thinking non-free software is acceptable. Sheesh!
TWW
That's an ivory-tower argument. It is not irrelevant if the programmer starves, neither to the users of a good product nor least of all to the programmer!
No programmers means no free software, after all.
TWW