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From: Jesse Pollard <jesse@cats-chateau.net>
To: Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>, Stephan von Krawczynski <skraw@ithnet.com>,
       Werner Almesberger <wa@almesberger.net>, lm@bitmover.com,
       miquels@cistron-office.nl, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: Troll Tech [was Re: Sco vs. IBM]
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 11:41:37 -0500
References: <063301c32c47$ddc792d0$3f00a8c0@witbe> <20030620142436.GB14404@work.bitmover.com> <20030620143012.GC14404@work.bitmover.com>
In-Reply-To: <20030620143012.GC14404@work.bitmover.com>
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On Friday 20 June 2003 09:30, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 07:24:36AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 12:09:10PM +0200, Stephan von Krawczynski wrote:
> > > On Fri, 20 Jun 2003 00:12:17 -0300
> > >
> > > Werner Almesberger <wa@almesberger.net> wrote:
> > > > Larry McVoy wrote:
> > > > > These discussions always make me wonder if the open source crowd is
> > > > > ever going to realize it's reasonable to be friendly with
> > > > > commercial companies.
> > > >
> > > > The problem is that you can't trust a company. You may choose to
> > > > trust people who control or shape a company, but they may lose
> > > > that control, and then all bets are off.
> > >
> > > And that is exactly _the_ argument in this whole discussion. There seem
> > > to be people out there who want to make a living from _others_
> > > _ancient_ work they bought for small bucks by sueing just about anyone.
> > >
> > > GPL has an inherent long-term strategy, you are talking of short-term,
> > > Larry. That does not match. If I am using only GPL-software I know I am
> > > able to use it as is in five years from now.
> >
> > Actually, my point is about long term strategy and what you think is long
> > term I think of as short term.  5 years isn't long term in my book.
>
> I realized after I sent that that maybe the point was too subtle.
> Open source is great, I use it, I love it, no problem there.  However,
> *if* I'm correct that what is happening is basically a process of copying,
> and *if* open source kills off the companies producing the products which
> are being copied, then open source slowly grinds to a halt in terms of
> creating anything new.
>
> That may well be fine in the minds of many.  Lots of people can't see
> past their nose and all they want is free versions of what they have to
> pay for today.  What's past their nose is all the new stuff we haven't
> seen yet.  Imagine a world without that new stuff.  Just roll back the
> world to 5 years ago and think of what you would have lost.

so you are saying there should be only one OS.

Only one C compiler.
Only one assembler.
Only one processor.
Only one disk drive. (since all they do is copy... :)
Only one language.

Since all of the following ones are only "copies" of the first one.

And M$ must really love this one since copying is all they do.

And what would I have lost?

not much. I am still using a 200 MHz SMP PPro.
welll... I would loose the UCITA, DMCA, Carnivore, 75 (or is it 90) year 
copyrights, restrictions on re-engineering ....

And a TON of stupid software patent restrictions.

I would have gained a number of bugs. I still use the window manager from 5 
years ago... with my own enhancements.

And I still wouldn't use M$ based systems.
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