RE: [tlug] Samba and licensing

[<burlingk@example.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen J. Turnbull
> Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 3:41 AM
> 
> RMS doesn't care about them, and neither do any other free software
> movementistas I know.  That's what the open source movement is about:
> free software for real people and real businesses.  The free software
> movement is of the hackers, for the hackers, and by the 
> hackers.  Never
> been anything else, never will be.
> 
> Parables about "welding the hood shut" notwithstanding....
> 

This is paraphrased to hell and back, so quotation marks are
pointless, but the general concept behind the FSF movement is
pretty much:

We make the software we use.  If it scratches an itch, it gets
written.  Documentation is nice, but if I am the main user,
does it really matter so much?  If it meets my needs, that is
what is important.  If it isn't good enough for your needs,
but it suits mine fine, then you have the source, fix it.

This is not the universal mentality.  If it were, projects
like Ubuntu and Gentoo couldn't exist.  It is however a
mentality that is very prevelent amoung the people who
developed the software at the core of the community (the
tool chain, as it was called in the previous post).

In many cases though, this still works.  If enough
people tweek it to scratch their individual itches,
then eventually it will do what a lot of people want.

It does not however lend to happy customer experiences
a lot of the time. :P

-- 
Ken