On Thu, Mar 13, 2003 at 05:08:10PM -0800, Mark Rafn wrote: > Here's the continuum I see: > > a) Joe opens a business "Joe's Typesetting Service". His customer brings > in handrwitten pages, Joe uses GPL software (some of which he's modified > to fit his work patterns) to enter, typeset, and print the documents. > The printed documents are given to the customer. > > b) His customer brings in floppies with text files, and recieves printed > documents. > > c) Customer prefers Joe to give him a floppy with Postscript output > on it instead of printed documents. > > d) Joe automates this conversion such that he can put a floppy into a > drive and the textfile on the floppy will be replaced by a postscript > file. This saves him a lot of time. > > e) To save further time, he allows his customer to put the floppy into > the drive rather than interrupting Joe. > > f) The customer e-mails Joe a textfile and joe e-mails the output. > > g) Joe adds to his program the ability to e-mail the resulting postscript > file automatically. > > h) Joe sets up a webpage which uses a mailto: form to send him the file. > > i) Joe sets up procmail to run his program when the customer sends > e-mail. > > j) His webpage is still up, now much more responsive. > > k) Joe converts his process to run as a CGI, accepting form posts and > returning the Postscript immediately > > l) Joe adds an XML-RPC interface to his page. > > The challenges: > > In which cases should Joe be forced to give his program to his customer? Great work, Mark. I think the reason that no one has replied is because those who have already made their minds up are having trouble thinking of reasons why their preference shouldn't be moved up or down on the scale. :) I don't have a good answer to your challenge at present, but it is a very nice exposition of the sort of problem I was wrestling with when I was trying to come up with the "DFCL". (I guess haven't completely given up hope on that yet, though. :) ) -- G. Branden Robinson | To stay young requires unceasing Debian GNU/Linux | cultivation of the ability to branden@debian.org | unlearn old falsehoods. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein
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