[GNC] Negative attitudes [was: Re: Negative numbers]

[Michael or Penny Novack]

> ToddAndMargo, I don't know what to conclude from what you are saying. 
> One sentence seems to show you understand that GnuCash only reaches 
> you by lots of people doing lots of things. The next sentence seems to 
> show you having a tremendous sense of entitlement to getting something 
> for nothing, and blaming the generous people who give you 10 gifts 
> when you don't get the 11th gift you want.

I am going to jump in here because I am old enough to have been around 
for the original discussions out of which "free software" movement came.

a) First of all, it was in rebellion to high priced software under 
restrictive license. It was NOT about "make software free as in free lunch".

b) The rallying cry was "software for the price of a book" (and by book, 
being academics, they pictured like the price of a college text, not 
trivial)

c) The LICENSE was to be free. If anybody wanted to compile the source 
code and give away free copies, they could do that. Somebody still could 
SELL copies. Of course they couldn't charge more than fair or somebody 
would do it cheaper or for free. Even for the open source code itself 
could be charged a "reasonable fee for supplying a copy on standard 
medium" << remember, no free downloads from the internet in those days 
 >> And that was just the SOURCE CODE. Perfectly OK for somebody to 
charge you for a compiled executable you could run on your machine << 
remember, at this time almost every machine had specific 
assemblers/compilers, far less standardization  than in recent decades>>

d) These were people who expected to make their livings from software. 
What is the outrage about? Nobody promised you FREE SUPPORT along with 
the free software. Nothing against selling you a book "how to use 
software app X". Or for debugging your problems.

e) Your entitlement (under free software rules) is JUST a free copy of 
the source code << now should be free as in free lunch because of 
downloads >> You are NOT (actually) entitled to an executable for your 
machine  or its installer for free, though that is customary nowadays 
since developers don't need to supply very many versions.

Michael D Novack

PS: And here I am not doing my bit to help development. But that's 
because spoiled by my working days when clients who wanted something 
were willing to put in their share of the work. I've seen lots of "I 
want this or that" but when challenged "OK, I'll design.code, test, but 
FIRST you commit to the "requirements meetings" << unless what software 
is SUPPOSED TO DO is fully defined I won't touch it >> and commit to the 
testing process. No? Then forget it.