On Thu, Nov 14, 2002 at 09:02:41AM +0100, Emile van Bergen wrote: > On Thu, Nov 14, 2002 at 02:45:35AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > Is it your belief that most people in the Free Software community would > > rather do nothing than work on Free Software? > > /That/ is exactly why it's unpersuasive. Just as unpersuasive as the > argument that good things are only developed when monetary incentives > exist. I am not asserting the truth of the statement implied by my question. > Either we're willing to develop free alternatives in the face of > non-free solutions, or we're not. I think that is a carelessly overbroad statement. I think *some* of us are willing to develop free alternatives to non-free solutions, and some of us are not. Some of us will feel compelled to start or stop working on free alternatives to non-free software if this GR passes, and other people won't feel any differently at all. > But I don't think /artificially/ making the use and support of > non-free harder will provide any incentive to work harder on Free > Software. "Artificially"? I do not understand how the current state of affairs is "natural". It is an artifice deliberately constructed in early 1997. > People will already spend as much time developing free software as they > have time and energy to. But priorities will generally be determined by > personal need for the software, public recognition and the feeling > you're doing something useful for others. Not by artificially raising > barriers to use existing, non-free software. "Artificially raising barriers" makes it sound like you feel that the Debian Project has monopoly power in the distribution of Debian packages (in the deb(5) sense), and that our actions make or break the entire playing field. Do you feel that way? > If it were only that easy to get work and dedication from people by > kidding them. I think that people spend all that time and energy only > when they see a /real/ value in doing it. And writing Free Software has > such value. But merely making existing non-free software less visible > doesn't improve the value of writing free alternatives as perceived by > potential developers. You assert this without foundation. You assert this to be the case for everyone; I don't. Have you figures to back up your claims? > That's that piece is entirely unpersuasive. If your thesis is grounded on faith rather than evidence, I doubt there is anything anyone can do to persuade you! -- G. Branden Robinson | Organized religion is a sham and a Debian GNU/Linux | crutch for weak-minded people who branden@debian.org | need strength in numbers. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Jesse Ventura
Attachment:
pgpuP8XwEDnSb.pgp
Description: PGP signature