[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Free as in speech, but not as in beer



Op 01-04-15 om 08:20 schreef Alessandro Rubini:

(..)

> The real problem is we lack sustainable commercial models for free
> software.  No wonder independent developers are fewer and fewer: those
> who are not employed by big corps (G, RH, LF) do free software in
> their spare time after earning a living on proprietary software. And
> those who insist in remaining independent are starving, unless they
> are better at marketing than at developing.
> 
> I welcome this approach, because it's novel and smart. Not "defective
> by design", but a simple thing to raise user's attention to a problem.

Nice to see that I am not the only one.

> Clearly I wouldn't like being forced to rebuild this and that to make
> real use of the distro.  

An howto will do that.

> But unless we know what this software package
> is, all of this discussion is moot.

You can look at it as an "academic discussion", that's what I do.

> The only thing I'm sure about is that upstream has a built-in bug,
> easily removable.  This bug has a novel and interesting reason to
> exist, 

exactly.

(...)

> I heard about a commercial model of making subtly bugged software and
> then sell consultancy to fix those bugs when users hit them.  *that*
> would be bad to have in debian, but we can't really know if some of
> this exists or has been accepted.  The upstream author of this
> discussion is much more clear and honest, and I respect it.

Nice to hear!

(...)

With regards,
Paul van der Vlis.




-- 
Paul van der Vlis Linux systeembeheer, Groningen
http://www.vandervlis.nl/


Reply to: