Comments on: FLOSS - and the rest http://www.p2pnet.net/story/8308 p2pnet.net - reader powered Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:46:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Reader's Write http://www.p2pnet.net/story/8308#comment-36588 Reader's Write Sun, 26 Mar 2006 03:00:53 +0000 http://www.p2pnet.net/story/8308#comment-36588 The concern isn't what would happen in a free market, as I agree that progress will win out. The idea of sharing knowledge that underlines Free/Libre and Open Source Software is the same scientific method that ended the dark ages and brought us the enlightenment. What I worry about is unaware politicians listening to the lobbiests from the old-economy industries and having government interventions in the marketplace. We already have a large number of government policies which radically favour legacy "software manufacturing" over FLOSS, including existing government procurement policy (I have an outstanding ATIP complaint about a Public Works attempt to mandate Microsoft on all Canadian government computers), software patents, and DRM which considers the owner of a device to be its attacker. The concern isn’t what would happen in a free market, as I agree that progress will win out. The idea of sharing knowledge that underlines Free/Libre and Open Source Software is the same scientific method that ended the dark ages and brought us the enlightenment.

What I worry about is unaware politicians listening to the lobbiests from the old-economy industries and having government interventions in the marketplace. We already have a large number of government policies which radically favour legacy “software manufacturing” over FLOSS, including existing government procurement policy (I have an outstanding ATIP complaint about a Public Works attempt to mandate Microsoft on all Canadian government computers), software patents, and DRM which considers the owner of a device to be its attacker.

]]> By: Reader's Write http://www.p2pnet.net/story/8308#comment-36532 Reader's Write Sat, 25 Mar 2006 00:21:48 +0000 http://www.p2pnet.net/story/8308#comment-36532 I think there's an intellectual divide that may never change. You've got many heads of companies who are dumbasses, and only look at a retail box being sold as value. They're the ones that will simply have to loose out, but oh well. Then you got smart folk. If they need a database for their backend, they can spend 10 million dollars to develop it or they can install mySQL for free and add their needed features for 10 thousand dollars instead. Survival of the most intelligent is the name of the game in business, and the smart folks will end up on top. We don't need the idiots to join the evolution of nondifferentiating software, because they're just going to die out anyway. I think there’s an intellectual divide that may never change. You’ve got many heads of companies who are dumbasses, and only look at a retail box being sold as value. They’re the ones that will simply have to loose out, but oh well.

Then you got smart folk. If they need a database for their backend, they can spend 10 million dollars to develop it or they can install mySQL for free and add their needed features for 10 thousand dollars instead. Survival of the most intelligent is the name of the game in business, and the smart folks will end up on top. We don’t need the idiots to join the evolution of nondifferentiating software, because they’re just going to die out anyway.

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