[vox] Open Source talk at MOCC

[Rod Roark]

On Friday 12 December 2003 12:50 am, Bill Kendrick wrote:
...
> The only 'negative' feedback I got from the talk was a fellow who first
> was asking how the world was supposed to work if noone got paid for software.

Might be useful to work on a good way to respond to this.
Here's the short version of my view:

Regardless of whether one agrees with Stallman's "all
software should be free" point of view (I do not, and
neither does Linus), the plain fact is that it is not and
never will be.  Free Software flourishes only where the
business world cannot figure out how to satisfy a pervasive
need with terms that people can swallow.

In the case of operating systems, the pervasive need is very
clear.  Linus did his thing because, as a student, he could
not afford the prohibitively high price of Unix.  Today
commercial operating systems and related software are still
vastly overpriced, over-protected and too restrictively
licensed, and the Free Software movement is powered by those
willing to say "enough is enough" and to actually do
something about it.

-- Rod