Mounir,
I must agree with Jim! All the discussen about that
everything should be open source and that no one can own a
piece of code, is for me just plain bullshit! If you want
to make a piece of code available for everyone (like
Linux), then fine. Go for it. But what is the different
between spending time and money to, let's say, make a car
and writing a software code/music/movie ? Nothing. It's
still something you made and you have every right to earn
money on it!
The bottom line is that if creators of products or
documents or music receive no remuneration these important
things will disappear. We'll be back in the days when, if
you needed a hammar you made one.
Every try to buid your own car. Before the days of 'free
enterprise' (which is far from free) musicians depended on
a sponsor, usually someone rich. So only that which
pleased the sponsor got produced, or at least only
creators who had a sponsor had the free time to create.
They could of course do something else and create in their
spare time.
The fact is that efforts to protect creative products does
cause more inconvenience, even cost, to those who would
not steal the product by copying it. OTOH we don't know
how many people might pilfer products if they weren't
locked awy when unattended. We all know the phrase, 'that
lock is only to keep honest people honest.'
Yeah, companies might do what they can to maximaize
profits....but DUH!, that's the whole point.
Making a profit seems to be a cardinal sin for some,
mostly those who don't know how to make a profit. What
they forget is that part of their companies profit pays
their salary. How many would be willing to give up their
pay so the producet could be sold more cheaply.
What muddies the watters is that there definitly are
companies whose profit motive is so strong that that
motive as miles ahead of any other consideration, not the
welfare of their workers, not fairness to customers that
doesn't translate directly into profit. Why else do so
many companies have miniscule budgets to handle customre
service assistance and complaints. I suspect that radio
stations that play elevator music go out of business
because people get enough of it while waiting for a human
to talk to on the 800 number they called an hour ago.
Most of us wouldn't have jobs if the whole point for a
companie wasn't to earn money.
True, but most companies today seem to see fair treatment
of workers and of their customers far less important than
this months 'bottom line'. And that is I guess driven by
how well they do on the stock market. 'Long term' today
seems to have only one meaning, a school semester that
lasts 25 weeks instead of 16.
No, if a private person gets hold of an illegal copy of
Microsoft Office, then I would scream out loud, but
helping or participating in doing actual hardware changes
to a product so that it allows a person to make tons of
illegal copies is illegal and should be punished!
If only the pirating could be curtailed without
inconveniencing the customers. It is bad enough that so much
software is poorly written and so feature laden to hide the
defects that many people don't realize the problem. And if
they do, the company is making so much money from the rest
that they don't care about the 'wieners'.
Jim
