[CS-FSLUG] Sydney Morning Herald: Cuba to Dump Windows for Linux

[Don Parris]

On Thu, 19 May 2005 22:27:04 -0700
David Aikema <daikema at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 5/19/05, Don Parris <evangelinux at thefreelyproject.org> wrote:
> > On Thu, 19 May 2005 19:32:37 -0700
> > David Aikema <daikema at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > On 5/19/05, Don Parris <gnumathetes at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Does anyone else here see the irony of Communist Cuba adopting libre
> > > > software, especially while the libre US continues its dependence on
> > > > non-free software. ;)
> > >
> > > I don't think that it's ironic at all.  To me, the ideas of communism
> > > and open source seem to have a much closer correspondence then that of
> > > free enterprise and open source.  Of course, communism in theory and
> > > communism in practice are two different things... human sinfulness
> > > always gets in the way.
> > >
> > 
> > I think libre software guarantees - and, quite possibly, inspires - free
> > enterprise. Just my opinion, though. :)
> 
> How so?
> 

Everyone has the opportunity to make money.  How many different on-line
stores sell GNU/Linux CDs?  How many consulting businesses have sprung up
around LOSS? (I don't know, either.)  A po' boy like me has the opportunity
to become technically adept, and find ways to capitalize on that.  That does
not mean that all the folks who live in the slums don't have other issues to
address in the process.  Still, they have an actual equal opportunity, as
opposed to a theoretical equal opportunity.

This does not necessarily apply to the poor, per se, but even they have an
opportunity if they are willing to take it.  The whole thing I think many
people miss out on is that people get paid to develop libre software - or at
least, they can.  And it isn't just development, either.  People can help
organizations migrate from one system to another, or help with data
migration issues.  There are numerous ways to make money with libre
software.

If you want to sell the software, just put a price on it.  You can put a
second price on the source, as long as it is not higher than the binary
distro.  For instance, according to the FSF, I could write a new app, sell
the binaries at, say, $50.00.  I can then charge an additional fee for the
source code, as long as the second fee is not higher than $50.00.  The
reason for that is that, without a limitation, people could *effectively*
cut off access to the source by charging an astronomical fee.

Mandriva, Red Hat, & SUSE are decent examples (though not necessarily the
best).  Why would Novell have bought SUSE if it were failing?  Of course,
Yast was initially proprietary, until Novell released it under a libre
license.  If the Ichthux project wants to charge a fee for the distro, I
would likely support that.  More than likely though, we might establish a
cottage industry around Ichthux tech support.

I agree that gratis is great.  I also agree that gratis doesn't feed
families.  In fact, the gratis has never been granted by the GPL, only that
I can't force you to pay me for redistributing my code (or PitP, for that
matter).  Lessig's article at Technology Review is long-winded, but makes a
similar point to what I am making here.  I think people are confused,
though, about the nature of "free".  We say, "free as in salvation", but we
still keep thinking of "free" as in "non-commercial".

Which is why I keep coming back to the libre philosophy.

Don
-- 
evangelinux    GNU Evangelist
http://matheteuo.org/                   http://chaddb.sourceforge.net/
"Free software is like God's love - you can share it with anyone anytime
anywhere."