From: cbbro...@news.hex.net (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Dead software (was: A draft business plan for free software LISP vendors)
Date: 1999/03/09
Message-ID: <tE_E2.20239$YV6.10375@news2.giganews.com>#1/1
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References: <7att2h$fpm$1@spitting-spider.aracnet.com> <lwemn6ykwm.fsf@copernico.parades.rm.cnr.it> <3129456541194192@naggum.no> <lwaext3a2n.fsf@copernico.parades.rm.cnr.it> <7blnuj$ai56v@fido.engr.sgi.com> <lzsoblxx65.fsf@ZhengHe.issy.cnet.fr> <3129559935348484@naggum.no> <lzn21tx79b.fsf@ZhengHe.issy.cnet.fr> <3129644482406982@naggum.no> <lzyalbqp17.fsf_-_@ZhengHe.augustin.thierry> <36E39284.E7D332D7@iname.com> <3129896583995790@naggum.no> <87n21nsuvd.fsf@piracy.red-bean.com>
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Reply-To: cbbro...@hex.net
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 19:17:13 CDT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp

On Mon, 08 Mar 1999 18:03:35 GMT, Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com> wrote:
>Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> writes:
>
>>   no, it isn't wrong.  from a customer perspective, it may be undesirable,
>>   the creator and owner of something has every right to what he sees fit,
>>   and you have no business at all telling him or anyone else that what he's
>>   doing is wrong.  first, respect the inalienable right to property and the
>>   fruits of one's labor.  only _then_ can you suggest ways to _entice_ the
>>   owner to do what you think would be desirable for _both_ parties.
>
>The inalienable right to property...  That means, do not bother
>responding to Erik unless you are ready to get an earful from a
>tireless poster who will not rest until everyone respects the
>ludicrous libertarian credo of inalienable property rights.  

From the customer's perspective, you have no business at all telling him
or anyone else that what they're asking for is wrong. 

The customer has the unalienable right to property and to the fruits of
their labours.  If someone tries to deny this via going out of business
or otherwise trying to stop supporting a piece of software, this takes
away from the customer the use of software that they have paid good
money for. 

Open Source *does* mean never having to worry about a system becoming
unmaintainable simply because a company goes out of business.  There may
be other reasons for software becoming diminishingly maintainable; if
the source code is at least available, this makes the task less
difficult...

-- 
"Just because the code is intended to cause flaming death is no reason
to get sloppy and leave off the casts." - Tim Smith, regarding sample
(F0 0F C7 C8) Pentium Death code on comp.os.linux.advocacy
cbbro...@hex.net- <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>