Re: Thread-aware MUAs

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


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