Will introducing the idea of "free-software for money" cause a rush of coders who care more about money than the benefits of free and open source code?
Other people have pointed out that the desire to collect the bounty may rush some less-than-complete software into production way too early, and that this may increase competition (at the expense of cooperation) for the sake of some money.
How will this affect software-as-art?
I have no problem with programmers being paid to work on free software by their employers, and I like that the resulting code is open, but we may be dealing with a shift in the motivation to write software here.
With the Bazaar model, we have internal motivation as the primary factor. I write free code because I want to try new things, or to solve a particular problem. (There's also the idea of the gift culture which comes into play, and it may be a more external motivation.)
With the Bounty model, those motivations may be subservient to the desire for cold, hard cash.
Granted, not everyone may succumb to this. It will be interesting to see if this idea takes off.
(Perhaps companies should hire successful free programmers as consultants to adapt the programs for specific uses within the companies... doesn't Sendmail, Inc. do this? After all, corporate folks, which would you rather have, a piece of proprietary software and a handful of people who probably could understand it, or a piece of open software and the people who wrote it?)
24 MB of RAM is at least 8 too few for NT, and there are a few corporate things used here that slow the system even further... so you're right, it's not the best benchmark.
It's still a pig compared to Linux on the same hardware.
... isn't the idea of an Exclusive agreement just speculation on the part of the author?
It's a hassle in my company (er, companies) to convince a non-technical manager to support *any* variety of Linux. The branding there by RedHat or whomever gives enough visibility to clear through some of the FUD.
Yes, CodeWarrior is probably easily usable on any other distribution given a couple of standards.
No, we don't know whether or not there is any sort of exclusive agreement.
Getting up in arms and threatening RedHat is, in my opinion, very premature at this point.
Still, I think that Katz is on to something: incidents like this present a glimmer of hope that individuals can outsmart the ever-expanding corporate presence in their lives.
By watching more TV?
Or by bootlegging it? I'm not sure either of those options are optimal.
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Will introducing the idea of "free-software for money" cause a rush of coders who care more about money than the benefits of free and open source code?
Other people have pointed out that the desire to collect the bounty may rush some less-than-complete software into production way too early, and that this may increase competition (at the expense of cooperation) for the sake of some money.
How will this affect software-as-art?
I have no problem with programmers being paid to work on free software by their employers, and I like that the resulting code is open, but we may be dealing with a shift in the motivation to write software here.
With the Bazaar model, we have internal motivation as the primary factor. I write free code because I want to try new things, or to solve a particular problem. (There's also the idea of the gift culture which comes into play, and it may be a more external motivation.)
With the Bounty model, those motivations may be subservient to the desire for cold, hard cash.
Granted, not everyone may succumb to this. It will be interesting to see if this idea takes off.
(Perhaps companies should hire successful free programmers as consultants to adapt the programs for specific uses within the companies... doesn't Sendmail, Inc. do this? After all, corporate folks, which would you rather have, a piece of proprietary software and a handful of people who probably could understand it, or a piece of open software and the people who wrote it?)
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QDMerge -- generate documents automatically.
24 MB of RAM is at least 8 too few for NT, and there are a few corporate things used here that slow the system even further... so you're right, it's not the best benchmark.
It's still a pig compared to Linux on the same hardware.
--
QDMerge -- generate documents automatically.
The minimum requirement for NT 4.0 is something like a 486/33 with 12 MB RAM (for an Intel-based machine) and 120 MB of hard drive space.
For a RISC-based machine, you'll probably need 16 MB of RAM.
On the other hand, I just worked on a P90 with 24 MB of RAM today, running NT, and it was unusable.
Some minimum requirements are more reasonable than others.
--
QDMerge -- generate documents automatically.
... isn't the idea of an Exclusive agreement just speculation on the part of the author?
It's a hassle in my company (er, companies) to convince a non-technical manager to support *any* variety of Linux. The branding there by RedHat or whomever gives enough visibility to clear through some of the FUD.
Yes, CodeWarrior is probably easily usable on any other distribution given a couple of standards.
No, we don't know whether or not there is any sort of exclusive agreement.
Getting up in arms and threatening RedHat is, in my opinion, very premature at this point.
--
QDMerge -- generate documents automatically.
By watching more TV?
Or by bootlegging it? I'm not sure either of those options are optimal.
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QDMerge -- generate documents automatically.
Real censorship would be WB executives raiding Katz's house, duct-taping his mouth shut, and taking away his keyboard.
Under Katz's definition, he would do it to himself.
Jon, I think you're in love with the Internet. There's no shame in that, but it's still only about communication.
Five years ago, people would have mailed fuzzily copied videotapes to each other. (Two years ago, they did that for Babylon 5.)
There's nothing new under the sun. You'll pardon me if I yawn when you find a new fad that looks just like the old fad.
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QDMerge -- generate documents automatically.