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Re: freedom


On Monday 31 March 2003 10:36 am, Gangolf Jobb wrote:
> i mean those kinds
> of freedom that require money: the freedom to get rid of a boss who
> is paying the programmers wage and telling him or her what to do. the
> freedom to take holidays whenever the programmer likes to.  the
> freedom to get rid of the house-owner to whom the programmer must
> pay rent each month and so on. there are people in this world who do
> not own anything and whose only chance to become free is by writing
> commercial software.

 So you think you are the only one who has this problem? So do 
musicians, mathematicians and artists. Those people have their regular 
day job and they come home to their hobbies. If those hobbies pan out 
in to a career, then that is a nice benefit.

 Since "you have to pay to get quality" seems to be a favorite theme 
these days, I would like to point that most of the things we enjoy in 
life were developed by *volunteers*.

Healthy milk and juices: Louis Pasteur
High frequency capacitors: Henrich Hertz
(Without Hertz's discoveries you would not even have a computer)
Discovery of X- Rays: Konrad Roentgen
(Roentgen was subsidized by his parents while experimenting)
Discovery of the quantum: Max Planck
(In the late 19th century, Planck was paid very poorly as a theoretical 
physicist;  certainly he was not paid as well as modern technical 
people.). 
Complex analysis: Augustin Cauchy
A good part of Calculus: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
( Leibniz did mathematics as a hobby, as did  Pierre de Fermat)

 None of the above people were paid to accomplish what they did. It was 
a labor of love. In fact, it's a safe bet that the hundreds of men and 
women listed at this site, were not payed in proportion to the value of 
their contributions:
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/BiogIndex.html
The point is that Libre software has the same aim. To provide quality 
programs that are not hobbled by commercial needs. Companies are 
concerned about profits not scientific precision. Libre software is not 
about money its about creativity and the desire to learn.


> i could live very well with a gsl under the
> lesser gpl and i do not support intolerance against those who are
> producing proprietary software as it is stated with almost religious
> fanatism in Richard Stallman's articles.


 What about the fanatical self congartulation corporations do? All the 
hype, advertising and self promotion are self serving. If innovation 
were driven by corporations we would be awash in pollution and living 
in little huts. My good reasons to dislike proprietary software. 1) 
it's not subject to peer review and 2) it comes with no warranties. Why 
should I trust you to produce a quality product when you won't let me 
thoroughly review the product and you won't warranty it? As far as I am 
concerned commercial software is a scam. They charge expensive prices 
for defective crap.  Hey, I have to use software made by Agilent, 
Dionex and Perkin Elmer. It's buggy crap and I could write an entire 
treatise entitled "Oh well, they lied". Commercial software makers 
never tell you about the bugs in their  products. I have to cross 
examine them to find out the truth. So the idea that the profit motive 
animates innovation and quality is nonsense. Corporations enshrine 
mediocrity, make an idol out of money and incline people to be ruthless 
and greedy. Show me someone who is solely actuated by the profit motive 
and I will show you a criminal. 


								Regards,
								Jonathan


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