Re: Enjoy solving problems?


[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: Enjoy solving problems?



On Tue, 23 Jun 1998 22:28:28 EDT, Ricardo Navarro <Fb4459@AOL.COM>
wrote:

>In a message dated 98-06-23 19:52:02 EDT, you write:
>
><< On Tue, 23 Jun 1998 08:17:08 +0100, Stuart Dawson
> <sd@dawson-eng.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >In article <358e3396.871714@nntp.ix.netcom.com>, Andrew Lewis
> ><floodle@usa.net> writes
> >>Unless you come up  with something incredibly
> >>unique, no one  in their right mind would pay for it,
> >
> >That's all _you_ know.
> >
> >>I am opposed to the entire concept of intellectual property.
> >
> >Ah, a principled socialist. Or a loser with just enough brainpower to
> >come up with a self-justifying rationalisation for stealing the product
> >of other peoples' work and investment.
> >
> >I make a coffee-table. It's mine. You steal it. You're a thief.
> >I write a program. It's mine. You steal it. You're a thief.
> >
> >What part of that do you have trouble with?
> >
> >--
>         A coffee table is a tangible product.  It requires a certain
> amount of labor to produce, and a certain amount of labor is required
> on the part of the producer to create  it (tangible, physical labor).
>
>         A TI-Basic program can be produced for free, as the
> programming language was already created and freely distributed by
> others, and any given programming technique was probably also thought
> of by someone else.  It requires no investment, aside from owning a
> calculator  (but a calculator is also a physical thing).
>         So lets say you write a math program in TI-Basic.  First of
> all, it costs you nothing, since you  already own the calculator, and
> the computer, and the link cable.  Secondly, you probably just took
> whatever formulas it  solves directly from a math text.  What have you
> done, except taken some public domain formulas and code them into a
> public domain language?  If we follow your archaic property-based
> logic, TI and the estate of the all the mathematicians who developed
> the formulas should split up all money you make from  your program.
>
>         See what I'm getting at?  If we attached a monetary value to
> every idea developed,  societal progress would grind to a halt.  The
> sharing of ideas, free of charge, between people, has made possible
> every major development of any kind.  Do you think the inventor of the
> wheel should receive royalties for every car made?  Do you think any
> one person really invented the wheel, instead of it being the result
> of a succession of developments, made by many different people?  Crude
> opportunism may make money, and frankly anybody dumb enough  to buy
> whatever you write probably deserves to lose their money, but a
> program is just an idea, and ideas are never the property of one
> person.
>
> -Andy
> (btw, the text of this message is public domain, and may be altered,
> copied and redistributed in any way you choose without fear of
> prosecution) >>
>
>
>I believe Stuart is trying to say that if someone writes a program,
>(regardless of the format that it is in) that the author could ask for some
>kind of payment in exchange for his efforts of creating the source code. For
>example, all of the software companies for computers out there, they didn't
>invent the computer or VB or Pascal or C++, and yet they charge for each and
>every program they create using these "public domain" languages. This includes
>TI BASIC, because it is just like how it is with computers.
>
>-fB
        Do or should?  The computer software companies you refer to,
like Microsoft, have, through their marketing efforts, conned users
into paying exorbitant sums of money for bloated, inefficient and
inherently unstable software.  About 30% of the money you pay for
windows, or anything else from microsoft, goes straight into their
cash reserves.

        If people really need to be paid in order to create worthwhile
ideas, why is Linux, maintained and supported by users basically out
of their own pockets, so much more stable than Windows?  It's common
knowledge Windows was't microsoft's idea.  They took a bunch of ideas
Apple "stole" from Xerox PARC and tacked them onto a crude ripoff of
CP/M they deceptively bought from its author to sell to IBM for a
profit.  Do you know how much money Xerox makes off every copy of
Windows?  Nothing.  Instead, it goes into Bill's new hundred million
dollar house, not because he is especially bright but merely because
he was in the right place at the right time.

        Who can defend this kind of thing?  You people are probably
out there right now, shoveling out 90 bucks a pop for a chance at
Windows 98, which does absolutely nothing for your computer, provided
you have IE4, the service pack, or OSR/2.

-Andy


References: