Re: Conflict of interest in Debian
On 16/10/14 00:14, berenger.morel@neutralite.org wrote:
>
>
> Le 15.10.2014 12:37, Scott Ferguson a écrit :
>> On 15/10/14 22:08, berenger.morel@neutralite.org wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Le 15.10.2014 12:09, Brian a écrit :
>>>> On Wed 15 Oct 2014 at 10:41:12 +0200, berenger.morel@neutralite.org
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Le 15.10.2014 09:11, Jonathan Dowland a écrit :
>>>>> >On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:51:07AM -0400, Steve Litt wrote:
>>>>> >>Check out what single company has 30% of the gatekeepers. Surprise,
>>>>> >>surprise.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >Damned for their success. We want Linux to be successful, but woe
>>>>> >betide any
>>>>> >company that actually gets us there...
>>>>>
>>>>> Maybe you want.
>>>>> But I think that most users just want it to work fine and
>>>>> efficiently, which does not necessarily imply being sold massively
>>>>> around the world.
>>
>> I would have 'thought' all users want "it" to be "useful" - but surely I
>> miss your point? (was there a point? I can only work with the words you
>> write and it reads like sophist rhetoric, assume the first nonsense is
>> not and it follows that neither is the second). As far as I'm aware
>> Debian has *never* been sold anywhere, nor are there plans to - did I
>> miss another meeting down the docks?
>
> I have never seen Debian sold either. But I was replying to a mail
> speaking about linux (which is, indirectly, sold with a lot of devices).
> My point is that there is no need to linux to have commercial sex-appeal
> to work fine and efficiently, or to make it useful. The fact that
> companies uses it in their products is simply because it suits their
> needs better than the alternatives they have checked.
Agreed - I'm not one of those people who believe in "desktop wars"
(which smacks of foolish fanboism). In most case (embedded and server)
the end-user has no idea about the OS.
As I stated - I can only work with the words that are written - not with
what is now, apparently, "what you meant to say". Call it clarification
if you like. Nor did I believe you said it.
>
>>
>>>>
>>>> He's doing some of the work on Debian; others work with different
>>>> distributions. They get what they want. Users get what they want.
>>>> Everyone's a winner. :)
>>>
>>> Maybe. But, when someone tries to sell stuff a lot, to have a big market
>>> share, then that guy must take a large target, which leads to systems
>>> which might become less stable or less efficient. And if that guy want
>>> to keep his market, then he'll have to avoid people escaping his stuff,
>>> this is why vendor locks exists.
>>
>> I could quote you Adam Smith on commerce and conspiracy - though I
>> seriously doubt he ever meant there are no non-business conspiracies. He
>> was smarter than that.
>>
>> But it'd be more pertinent to note that servers cost money to run and
>> Debian (and the FSF) do a good job of not allowing any contributions in
>> labour or money to control it's production or direction. To allow the
>> former would be both foolish and ignore the nature of Free Open Source
>> Software. I can't think of any distro that doesn't accept assistance
>> from business.
>
> I never said that Debian,
Please - there's no need to be so defensive. I carefully inserted my
response *below* what I'm responding to. Just because your name is in
the thread doesn't mean every response is about what you said. I can
follow who said what - can't you?
> or whatever free software, should refuse
> contributions because the contributor is financially interested by the
> quality of the project. I simply said that big companies' input is not
> necessary (not that it's not useful), and I think I can argue that,
> AFAIK, either linux or debian, started without such inputs. If there is
> now that kind of input, it's good, but it's not because those projects
> wanted to "seduce" those big companies.
And now you're just lugging goal posts. Sad. You did say you had a
problem with Debian using commercially sponsored code - and therefore
were considering NetBSD - I simply pointed out that so does NetBSD. I
note that you removed my point that all distros use commercially
sponsored code.
>
>> Here's a good place to start your "looking":-
>> http://www.netbsd.org/contrib/org/
>>
>> Kind regards
>
> Indeed.
>
>
Kind regards
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