Hi,
Sorry that my previous mail had raised a furore. Let's get back to the topic of 'free software'. There's a wider perspective to free software which requires deeper analysis.
Free software is not always developed free of charge. In many cases, a recent example being Firefox, they require donations. Why is this necessary? Where does the donations go to?
Free software could be the basis of an enterprise. In the case of Yahoo, Googles etc, they cultivate a large user base and then this form the base for earning revenues from ads. Will Debian accept advertisments as a source of revenue? This could happen as its popularity increases. And how would the money be used? Is this spelled out in its charter?
On a wider perspective, will free software threaten the whole software industry? I doubt it. Not everyone can afford to develop free software on a full time basis. If you still have to earn a living or strive towards a certain standard of living, you just cannot afford to work fulltime on something which gives no financial reward. Moreover which is a better motivating factor, sacrificing yourself for all or yourself and your immediate family? This is driving at the very grain of human nature. I think this is a case of idealism vs pragmatism and it has been answered in the form of capitalism vs communism. Sorry for being political, its just unavoidable.
Free software is possible because of the nature of software and the invention of the Internet. Software is basically about symbolic representation. With the computers and the Internet it can be jointly developed and passed around worldwide. Has anyone thought of a similar effort to develop a 'free' processor to challenge the dominance of Intel? The concept, requirement, spec, design can all be done 'free' on the Net. But not the realisation of the hardware chip. This requires material, equipment and facilities; physical entities which are expensive and cannot be passed around the world easily. Moreover, the final chip does not have much space to carry advertisements. And they would be hidden inside the chassis most of the time.
I'm not for or against free software, just thinking aloud. I think I'll get the best of both worlds. I'll go for a dual-OS system, both commercial and free software in one box. More about this in another thread.
Cheers
Ken