Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!news.stack.nl!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Mark H Harris Newsgroups: comp.lang.python Subject: Re: Free vs proprietary (was Re: NumPy, SciPy, & Python 3X Installation/compatibility issues) Date: Sun, 11 May 2014 00:36:55 -0500 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Lines: 43 Message-ID: <536F0C77.5030108@gmail.com> References: <39c6fc1b-9720-4606-9879-bcb48aa9958b@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: RbLuqvdjwUNhJiyJQaji5Q.user.speranza.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.5.0 X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:71291 On 5/10/14 11:16 PM, Nelson Crosby wrote: > I also believe in this more 'BSD-like' view, but from a business > point of view. No one is going to invest in a business that can't > guarantee against piracy, and such a business is much less likely > to receive profit (see Ardour). > > Don't get me wrong - I love free software. It's seriously awesome > to see what a community can do. But at the same time, some people want > to earn a living from writing code. That is simply not possible > without proprietary software. > That's just the point... The twenty-first century is not going to be about making money by moving bits around a network, nor about making money writing code. It is going to be about making money|living (whatever that means) by leveraging free networking (think libre box) and by leveraging free (as in libre) software and libre software engineering. In other words, no longer are coders going to make a living writing proprietary code; rather, coders are going to make a living leveraging their skill writing libre software (in the specialized problem domain needing their resources --- free agents, have skill, will travel, or connect). So, I go to work for some technical scientific research outfit that just got a federal grant for yadda yadda... and I bring in my toolkit|toobox (julia, haskell, python, C++ &c whatever) and I make a living coding within that specialized domain. I don't market the app (& they don't either). The killer app in the 21st century IS the unix distro (gnu/linux), and the toolbox is (mine, or yours). We are going to stop purchasing software across the board, and we are going to share. In the process we are going to make our livings with our skills, services, innovations towards specialized problem domains through leveraged technical specialty, and by working together to better the whole. This is already occurring. marcus