Topic: No software is free? I say we charge her with theft...

[Sirgod]

Linux and to a degree Mac, is looking at this, and slowly, oh so slowly, bringing Gaming back to the Personal computer.

Now padern me, while I dig out my Amiga 500. I hear there is a new CLI for it.

Stephen

woo hoo, Amiga.  I have owned three different Amiga's and loved each one. (last one drowned in a flood)  I would love to see it come back in a newer form.

You me, and Scott Bruno...

Scott was one of the few original programers who ever worked with an Amiga.

Hell for years, I used the commodore Monitor as a TV.

Stephen

[marstone]

I just last month got rid of my 1080S monitor.  My son used it to play his N64/xbox on.  I did like programming on it, was interesting.

That machine was so far ahead of it's time.  Schools should have had them instead of clones or apple II's.  Then now noone would think twice of MS.

[Sirgod]

I just last month got rid of my 1080S monitor.  My son used it to play his N64/xbox on.  I did like programming on it, was interesting.

That machine was so far ahead of it's time.  Schools should have had them instead of clones or apple II's.  Then now noone would think twice of MS.

Add a video toaster, and you where the god of the 80'S.

The best machine ever made Mars., Best machine ever.

Stephen

[marstone]

I just last month got rid of my 1080S monitor.  My son used it to play his N64/xbox on.  I did like programming on it, was interesting.

That machine was so far ahead of it's time.  Schools should have had them instead of clones or apple II's.  Then now noone would think twice of MS.

Add a video toaster, and you where the god of the 80'S.

The best machine ever made Mars., Best machine ever.

Stephen

ohh, I wanted a toaster.

[Sirgod]

I just last month got rid of my 1080S monitor.  My son used it to play his N64/xbox on.  I did like programming on it, was interesting.

That machine was so far ahead of it's time.  Schools should have had them instead of clones or apple II's.  Then now noone would think twice of MS.

Add a video toaster, and you where the god of the 80'S.

The best machine ever made Mars., Best machine ever.

Stephen

ohh, I wanted a toaster.

The Intro to the TNG series was made with an Amiga 2000, and a video toaster.  My god man, the things we could do with Differing instruction sets, to Fat Denise.

Stephen

[Pestalence_XC]

Amiga ... Nice machine at the time.. I had a couple machines a little older.. IBM 8088 and an Adam 8086 portable.

I remember the expansion casette drives, memory and program cartridges, etc.

Ah, the good old days.

[Nemesis]

This type of thing has happened before.  It was a government official not a teacher.  (This was over Firefox)

"I can't believe that your company would allow people to make money from something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the case?" she asked.

"If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted."

She seemed to think people shouldn't give away software so her job would be easier.  She wouldn't have to investigate on a case by case basis whether or not a given software was really legal or not she would have to seek and evaluate evidence rather than rubber stamping complaints as valid.

[Dracho]

I think I would send her a short reply that goes something as follows:

Madam,

Thank you for your opinion.  As a matter of curiosity, are you aware that you are a stupid, uninformed b*tch, or does this question come as a shock to your over-inflated ego?

Sincerely,

The Penguin

[Nemesis]

I would have been more polite but among the things I would have done is directed her to Microsoft as the market leader and suggest that she talk to them about giving away IE. 

One comparison I have used for explaining the philosophy behind free software is the pioneers (and such groups as the Amish today) doing barn raisings.  The people doing the barn raising's for free were not just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, they knew that down the road at some point it would be their turn for the community to get together and help them out.  Those who could but wouldn't help others found others wouldn't help them.

Free software people are the same as those pioneers in community working.  Each of those on a project want what the project offers and each for the efforts they put out get to have the results of the efforts of all the others.  Few of those contributing could have created the whole thing and not as quickly (or in most cases as well) but together they accomplish it and do so faster and usually better.  Those who don't contribute code can still do other things, bug reports, manual/help file writing, promoting its wider use and defending it from attacks like these.

For those who call this communist (Microsoft) or unAmerican (Microsoft again) I ask were the pioneers communists or unAmerican with their barn raisings?  If not then what is the difference that makes the free software community bad?  I have yet to get a response that made any sense.

[marstone]

Free software people are the same as those pioneers in community working.  Each of those on a project want what the project offers and each for the efforts they put out get to have the results of the efforts of all the others.  Few of those contributing could have created the whole thing and not as quickly (or in most cases as well) but together they accomplish it and do so faster and usually better.  Those who don't contribute code can still do other things, bug reports, manual/help file writing, promoting its wider use and defending it from attacks like these.

For those who call this communist (Microsoft) or unAmerican (Microsoft again) I ask were the pioneers communists or unAmerican with their barn raisings?  If not then what is the difference that makes the free software community bad?  I have yet to get a response that made any sense.

Also don't forget for new programmers out of school, free projects are a great way to build a code resume for getting that great paying job.  Companies want people who have shown what they can do, not what they think they can do. 

It becomes the try before you buy examples to future employers.  What better win/win can there be, free good software for the masses.  Good paying jobs down the road for the programmers who do it.

[marstone]

I guess you can also look at the altruism of free software.  All these teacher types love it when someone donates money to needy causes.  This is the same thing.  Makes the giver (programmers, designers, etc) feel good about giving a good product to others.  The receivers can enjoy the hours of fun or usefullness they get from the software.

[Nemesis]

Also don't forget for new programmers out of school, free projects are a great way to build a code resume for getting that great paying job.  Companies want people who have shown what they can do, not what they think they can do. 

It becomes the try before you buy examples to future employers.  What better win/win can there be, free good software for the masses.  Good paying jobs down the road for the programmers who do it.

Not to mention that if your company uses "program X" and it is open source you can at least potentially hire one of the creators to customize/enhance it for your use.  Want to have a proprietary program enhanced for your use?  Be ready with lots of zeros for the check and no guarantee that even that will be enough.

I guess you can also look at the altruism of free software.  All these teacher types love it when someone donates money to needy causes.  This is the same thing.  Makes the giver (programmers, designers, etc) feel good about giving a good product to others.  The receivers can enjoy the hours of fun or usefullness they get from the software.

I usually compare to charity volunteer work when some one starts on "companies like Redhat/IBM are EXPLOITING those poor programmers".  A lot of volunteer work and charitable giving benefits companies but you wouln't want to stop it would you?  So why try and stop people from volunteering on software creation of their own free will just because some companies profit from it?  (Redhat and IBM specifically give a lot back to the community too).

[Dracho]

I have a ton of servers and Point-of-sale systems running Linux that says the only clue she has came in a box and was made by Milton Bradley.

[toasty0]

a second sad thing for that teacher is that Mac is making huge inroads to college/research.  Many of the offices in the building I work in (a local university medical research building) are getting Macs.  MS based machines are still the norm but Mac is widdling it down.

The machines for internet use in the hallways are all Linux based, so that is good too.  

Many of you are too young to remember, but at one time Mac owned all schools. Then they played the monoply card and everyone ran to PC.

[Nemesis]

a second sad thing for that teacher is that Mac is making huge inroads to college/research.  Many of the offices in the building I work in (a local university medical research building) are getting Macs.  MS based machines are still the norm but Mac is widdling it down.

The machines for internet use in the hallways are all Linux based, so that is good too.  

Many of you are too young to remember, but at one time Mac owned all schools. Then they played the monoply card and everyone ran to PC.

Mac or Apple II? 

[KOTH-KieranXC, Ret.]

When I was in my school district's elementary-level gifted program in the early/mid 90s, we had nothing but early model Macs. Our computer lab at my home school had mostly Apple IIs for the first few years I was there.

I was so happy when I got to middle school and the district finally started to ditch all their crappy Apple products in favor of PCs...

So no, Toasty, some of us aren't too young to remember.

[Sirgod]

Man that takes me back ToastyO and Kieran. I can remember having the weekly 20 spelling words and we would use an old Mac (apple IIC ) to make a crossword puzzle.

I do indeed remember them in school.

Stephen

[Nemesis]

I was reading on another site some posts about this and here is the best one:

Imagine if that same attitude was taken during the women's rights movement. Basically, the equivalent comment would be, "do not teach women about science, math, or business because its not preparing them for the real world."

Myself I find that learning competing methods gives me trouble shooting skills that I would have missed if I had only learned one way.  Just the other day my knowledge of DOS allowed me to delete files and directories that Windows Explorer (in XP) refused to delete (these were user created not system files/directories).  Someone who never learned DOS or the commandline would have been stuck.   Things I've learned from DOS/Windows have made me better with Linux and my Windows system became more stable using concepts I learned from Linux.

Restricting students to a narrow curriculum (on whatever topic) cripples them (IMO of course). 

[marstone]

When I was in my school district's elementary-level gifted program in the early/mid 90s, we had nothing but early model Macs. Our computer lab at my home school had mostly Apple IIs for the first few years I was there.

I was so happy when I got to middle school and the district finally started to ditch all their crappy Apple products in favor of PCs...

So no, Toasty, some of us aren't too young to remember.

our school district was all AppleII+'s.  Mac's never made it up in my area (in the schools that is). 

Too young, no.  I was one of the first two students to be able to program on the schools one computer back in 7th grade.  Had to teach ourselves how to program.  HS had basic programming courses, but never learned as much as I did with a keyboard at one hand, and the book on the language in the other.

[Clark Kent]

My school district had macs since before I got into jr high.  The elementary schools stayed on Apple IIs, but the Jr high and HS has always had a policy of "needing" the latest models, and they usually choose models that are over priced for what they offer.  Always macs though.  When I got there, they had some LCs that were just about at the "end" of their "useful life.  They upgraded their systems 3-4 times from my 7th to 12 grade years, and as far as I can tell, they are continuing to follow that kind of mentality.

Then they wonder why voters keep voting "no" on the new school bond referendums they push out every 1-2 years.  Well, actually, they don't wonder, they very loudly and publicly whine to high heaven about it.