Re: Thread-aware MUAs

[Hal Vaughan <hal@thresholddigital.com>]

On Friday 25 August 2006 03:27, Paul Johnson wrote:
> On Thursday 24 August 2006 21:37, Hal Vaughan wrote:
> > But Paul, you're non-free.
>
> Sure, but I also work for a living, I provide a service to my
> employer.  Other people make goods.  Yet others seem to think it's
> acceptable to consider an intangible and infinitely reproducible idea
> as property to be profited from.

Programs provide a service to those who use them.

If you wrote a book or script and put a lot of effort into that 
intangible and reproducible idea, but people expected to get a copy for 
free, I think you'd have a different view.  A carpenter can spend hours 
making a chair and gets paid.  A writer should be able to get paid for 
his work.  I know the next thing you'll point out is that the writer's 
work is infinitely reproducible, but look at the cost.  That carpenter 
can create a hand made chair and get paid three figs for one day of 
work.  A writer writes a book and, in most book stores, people pay 
about $5 for it, even though it could take months or years to write.

> This isn't to say programmers shouldn't make money:  They're
> providing the service of programming so you don't have to.  But to do
> that, then turn around and charge a couple hundred bucks for
> something that has no natural scarcity, then saying they can't change
> it or fix it?  That's just morally bankrupt.  

You're not just paying for scarcity, but also for the level of expertise 
needed to produce the program.

So are you saying that since you're non-free, it would be morally 
bankrupt for you to not to be fixed?

> That's like saying "I 
> thought of it first.  Nobody else can think any thought like that
> again without paying me!"

It's not just the thought that the person is paid for, but the work in 
putting it into a useable form.  That's like the people David Gerrold 
once told me about.  They come up to a writer and say, "I've always had 
this idea for a story.  If I told it to you and you wrote it up, do you 
think we could split the profit?"  He'd say, "Sure, I've got a great 
idea for a swimming pool.  Why don't you dig the hole and put it in 
your yard and we can both use it any time we want."

Oh, and don't worry.  Nobody else is trying to think any thoughts like 
yours.  (Take that however you want to!)

Hal