Sender: crough45 AT amc DOT de
Message-Id: <97Mar21.183831gmt+0100.16642@internet01.amc.de>
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 18:38:42 +0100
From: Chris Croughton <crough45 AT amc DOT de>
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Cc: orly AT gibson DOT eee DOT upd DOT edu DOT ph
Subject: Re: Req: DOS/DJGPP Quake Makefile
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On Fri, 21 Mar 1997, Orlando Andico wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Mar 1997, David McKee wrote:
>

> > ...  If I work 18 months on code or 18 months digging a ditch,
> > I ought to get paid for it (if it's something that people want).  

And if that's the contract you've made.  If you dig a ditch without
a contract and then say "pay up" then you you have no right to get
paid for it.  If you make a contract (verbally or in writing, but
there needs to be some agreement) then you have a right to demand
payment.

Of course, you can always stop other people from using your ditch 
without paying if you want (and if you can).  And that's where the
'property' aspect comes in, if someone else takes it without your
permission then it is theft.  You don't have a right to demand payment,
you do have a right to forbid usage without payment.

> > If
> > I am willing to do the work for free, then thats fine, but it should
> > be the choice of the person who did the work.

Certainly.  But you also have the choice of whether to use software with 
a built-in contract or not, whether that contract is "pay me before you 
use it" (conventional software sales), "pay me if you like it"
(shareware)
or "you must give people your source" (GNU).  No-one's forcing you to
use
a GNU compiler; if you choose to use it then you have made a contract to
provide your sources.

Or you can use DJGPP which puts no restrictions on what you can do,
and doesn't even cost you anything apart from the media or net
and phone transfer costs (over which the author has no control).

> There is NOTHING in the GPL that says you can't make money off GPL'ed
> software. Note that Cygnus, Red Hat, Caldera, and others are making a
> comfortable living selling mostly-GPL software.

In fact there are statements in there which explicitly allow you to make
money off your software and the writing of it.  What it doesn't allow
is the extortion practiced by many companies of "we won't fix the bugs
unless you pay us more money, and we won't tell you about them either".
This practice (pioneered in computers by IBM) allows them to hold you
and your company to ransom (and in the IBM case meant that you often 
had to buy new hardware as well - Windows is going the same way).

> I respect your opinion, but I am a programmer myself (well, things may
> change when I get out of school and get a job..) but I agree with RMS.
> Have you heard/read his "infinite sandwich" parable? My personal stand is,
> I've benefitted far more from free software (i.e. DJGPP, Linux, Khoros..)
> than I can ever give back even if I write free software for the rest of my
> life.

I am a programmer, as a job as well as for fun.  I do get paid for
writing
(non-free) programs.  I guess I'm not as 'pure' as some people like to
claim.  But I do agree that I've benefitted much more from free programs
than I'm ever going to put back.  I suspect it's a synergetic system -
the total is a lot greater than the sum of its parts...

('Khoros'? What's that?)

Chris