Re: Writing for Free Software Magazine

From: Hal Vaughan (hal_at_thresholddigital.com)
Date: 03/26/05

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    To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 16:47:29 -0500

    On Saturday 26 March 2005 03:41 pm, Lee Braiden wrote:
    > On Saturday 26 March 2005 20:06, Michael Z Daryabeygi wrote:
    > > The argument you present only adds up to the possibly diminished
    > > usefulness of the rag.
    >
    > No. By providing a service and yet withholding it from others, you create
    > very real poverty. Poverty is measured relative to what others have, not
    > in an absolute lack of things.

    By providing a service and yet withholding a way for him to earn income on it,
    he creates a very real poverty.

    While I would love to see access to all information, entertainment, and
    software be free, I also strongly believe that those who sweat and toil for
    it should be paid. By your extension, all software should be free, which
    many believe. While we are finding more and more business models for people
    to make money on open source software and on products released in a creative
    commons (not THE creative commons), there is still the need for those doing
    so to earn a living for it.

    I'm sure you contribute to free software. Do you make a living programming?
    Do you get paid for producing proprietary code? If so you are as guilty as
    you are accusing him of being.

    As for information, I think if someone has spent a lot of time, money, and
    effort on discovering some information, they should be able to earn income to
    compensate them for their efforts.

    Look at, and read carefully, "The Raven." It has been read by almost every
    Am. lit student in the past 50 years, and even in Poe's lifetime, it was very
    popular. Putting the words together to create the rhythms and sounds he
    created is not easy, and would have taken him significant effort -- and was
    only possible because of all the work in poetry that he had previously done.
    Yet he was paid very little for the poem. Poe had to spend a lot of time
    focused on things other than his writing to make a living. If this were not
    true, we might have much more work by him than we do. (I, for one, would not
    at all complain if we had another 50-100 of his short stories of the quality
    of "The Tell-tale Heart," or "The Casks of the Amontillado.")

    While there are some who have written great works while writing part time,
    writers that can spend their lives focused on writing produce much better
    work, overall, and in greater quantity, than part-timers. I, for one, would
    rather see writers, and all artists (including programmers, dancers, actors,
    painters, graphic artists, ect.) getting paid enough for their efforts that
    they don't have to work 3 part time jobs. It enhances the quality of the
    writing and ensures they are compensated for the effort they put into their
    contribution to society.

    He is not restricting information. Anyone can have it. It just depends on
    whether they want it NOW or in 6 weeks. The information is available for
    anyone, he's just created a business model that at least lets them break
    even.

    Sometimes it is necessary to take into account experience, reality, and the
    truth of people needing money to survive in this world when one is making
    ethical decisions and I think by not discriminating (if you want, you can
    pay, so can I, so can anyone -- or any of us can wait 6 weeks), he has
    created a business model equitable to all.

    Hal

    > --
    > Lee. 

    -- 
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