Re: [Fsfe-uk] Accounts

[MJ Ray]

Ciaran O'Riordan <address@hidden> wrote:
> I paid 30euro for an operating system last week, but it wasn't
> really the software that I was buying. [...]

Not really related to what I said.

[...]
> No one pays for software.  People pay M$ for the privilage (heh)
> of using their software.  GPL automatically gives everyone
> the privilage so a different incentive is needed.

No.  GPL gives your users more rights than an EULA, including the
ability to set themselves up in competition with you, for some values
of "competition", but don't you start saying that all GPL code must be
available to everyone from day one for free.  It might be nice if that
were the case, but sometimes people might not want to do it that way.
It's all just another part of the rich and varied tapestry of FSBs.

> People will pay for support, training, advice, hand-holding,
> printed manuals, the medium+delivery, and proprietary licenses,
> or to fund GPL s/w. [...]

Yes, that, and being directly paid for the writing -- it's all revenue.
I wish that we could all just slosh donations around, but that's not
the way the world works right now.

-- 
MJR/slef   My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
      http://mjr.towers.org.uk/   jabber://address@hidden
Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
       Thought: "Changeset algebra is really difficult."