[FSF-India] Help me out...

[Pappu]

On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 11:23:25AM +0530, Raju Mathur wrote:
> >>>>> "Pappu" == Pappu  <pappu10@mailandnews.com> writes:
> 
>     Pappu> [snip]
>     Pappu> I have a few doubts..
> 
>     Pappu> 1) If you would pay for non-free software, why wouldn't you
>     Pappu> pay for the same software + FREEDOM?
> 
> Because the percieved value of free (as in beer) stuff is 0,
> especially in India.  
In India, all software is percieved as of 0 monetary value. 

> Apart from that, what people really pay for is packaging and support 
This is valid for non-free software also. A person buying a pc from the
neighbourhood assembler for home use doesnot look for support from the
original software vendor and hence copies the software, instead of 
paying the vendor for it.

> -- e.g. Redhat's CD sales are still OK despite
> the fact that you can download ISO images of their product and PDF
> versions of their printed documents from their web site. 
You can do the samething with non free software, illegally.

> Studies on the web also show that 80 to 85% of a packaged software 
> cost lies in post-sales support.
It is true for non free software as well.
> 
>     Pappu> 2) If you develop non-free software, what guarentee do I
>     Pappu> have that people will pay money for it, rather than copy it
>     Pappu> illegally from a friend?
> 
> I don't think this ought to be an issue in any discussion about free
> software.
This is not raised as an issue. If the arguement goes that a person will 
not pay for free software, I just want to point out that that person will
not pay for non free software as well.

> Illegal copying of software is just that: illegal.  I may
> not agree with proprietary software copyright, but I do respect the
> law of the land.
> 
Not every one does. 
>     Pappu> 3) If you hide your source code by just providing the
>     Pappu> binaries, what guarentee do you have that someone will not
>     Pappu> use some tool to reverse engineer your code and use it?
> 
> Umm, how many people have reverse engineered the whole of MS Windows
> 3.11 or MS Word 2.0 so far? 
This was not required since any body who needed it without spending
money, just copied it from a friend, illegally.

> 
>     Pappu> I believe that you can give me answers, since you seem to
>     Pappu> be convinced of the economic viability of non-free
>     Pappu> software.
> 
> As I see it, the place for packaged proprietary software is in niche
> areas in the long term.  Free software will dominate mainstream
> applications within 5 years, as it already does commodity protocols
> like HTTP and SMTP today.  Unfortunately, MS and other software
> vendors also see this happening; these people are now moving from
> proprietary products to proprietary services (e.g. .NET) so that they
> can continue to lock in their userbase.
That is true. But GNU and GPL makes sure that software remains free
for all those who care.

bye,
pappu.