Re: Major interview

["malonowa" <malonowa@wanadoo.fr>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Hilaire Fernandes <hilaire@seul.org>
To: <seul-edu@seul.org>
Cc: <seul-edu@seul.org>
Sent: samedi 4 septembre 1999 02:42
Subject: Re: Major interview


>    From: Michael Williams <michael@haywood.k12.nc.us>
>
>    > Ray Olszewski wrote:
>    >
>    >> The general question is the relative merits of encouraging
>    >> EdSoft developers
>    >>
>    >> to port their (proprietary, fee based) applications to Linux,
>    >> versus relying
>    >>
>    >> on the Open Source/free software community to create the needed
>    >> apps and distribute them at no charge.
>    >
>    In our district, 'free' opened the door to linux as an NOS. It will
>    take 'free' to get it on the desktop, but once it's there, I expect
>    that the proprietary software applications will follow as soon as
>    they realize the potential for profit.
>
> Yes, you are totaly right. Edusoft companies doesn't need us to take
> the decision to port applications. We can advocate as hard as we can,
> they will do so only if there is profit to be done, not because we ask
> them. We should spend more energy asking developper to start free
> project education oriented.
>
This is not true for everyone. Whilst I appreciate your passionately held
views you mustn't fall into the trap of making such sweeping generalisations
with regards to the "Edusoft companies". They don't all follow the same
business model. Take Topologika for example, as far as I can see they would
port software simply because "we asked them to". I will port software
because "you ask me to". There are people out there who will do things
simply because they believe it's right to do it and if they can avoid going
bankrupt in the process then that's a good thing. Please don't de-humanize
all companies, there are people behind these companies who have genuine
beliefs and share much of the good will and intention for young people as
you do - but they do need to earn a living in the process. I've known the
guy who owns topologika for about 8 years now and I can definitely tell you
that this is a good man and not at all the sort of person you'd like to
believe he his.

As for starting "free" projects, these companies are much too small to take
such risks. They could quite easily go bankrupt very quickly with just one
mistake here. It's just not viable. And remember that NOT ALL software can
be developed for free. If we insist on an entirely free development model
then all the software that requires licensing, royalties etc. just wouldn't
exist - and that's a lot of resources that we're all accustomed to that
would suddenly become unavailable.

There's a tendancy to believe that the free software model can do anything.
Is this really realistic? Take a really good piece of multimedia software
that contains lots of video footage etc. Could you pay several hundred
thousand dollars to licence it and then give it away? The free software
authors certainly couldn't raise the money to develop the product in the
first place.

You mentioned in a previous e-mail that too much commercial software would
limit freedom. This simply isn't so. Whilst this may be true if the
operating system isn't free, I fail to see how a piece of edsoft. could
effect the community's freedom. I'm all for co-existance with all
philosophies in life. Remember that wars have been started simply because
people didn't share the same philosophy or religion. If we go to far with
either model then we risk destroying our own arguments - we cannot argue for
freedom if we wish to eliminate the others, that would inevitably lead to
the removal of choice for those who don't agree with us and therefore
defeats the purpose of it all.

Remember that to be able to develop any and every product free would require
a fundamental change in society as a whole - it's not just about
programming, the implications are far wider than that. To expect this to
happen overnight and not in a progressive manner is quite unrealistic. We
should all try to be patient and do what we can when we can.

Those who preach too hard are often not heard.


Roman.