[GRASS5] Leaving

[Thierry Laronde]

On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 03:49:50PM +0100, Jan-Oliver Wagner wrote:
> > 
> > The third point discards GPL: if once you have made a work, everybody
> > can take it and do whatever one wants, a developer has no incitative and
> > no means to be paid for what it actually does.
> 
> I strongly object to this statement!
> It has already been proven to be wrong as there are people out there
> making a living based on Free Software licensed under GNU GPL.

I don't plan to fight against these assumptions since this will be an
absolutely sterile discussion, and too many electrons have already been
wasted with such threads.

On can make a leaving with Free Software as long as it is only
installation, configuration, maintenance or very particular 
customisation (but a customisation that is not a "general" solution).

There are enough enterprises already dead to know that.

This plus the fact that irresponsibles have advertised as a sole
advantage: free software is free i.e. gratis. And they have added: you
have no more need to for developers since what you need is already
downloadable!

And the result (this is an evidence, I have lived this situation!) is 
that a developer is considered a guy who _costs_ money and not an
indispensable part of an enterprise focused on software... 
-- 
Thierry Laronde (Alceste) <tlaronde at polynum.org>
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89  250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C