Re: Source Code for OS?

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <ZNzf6.1353$tT3.12002@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
Simon Biber <simon@basilisk2.cjb.net> wrote:
 
> But their availability for free download means that only people who
> need the original media or the manuals will buy a used copy. If it
> wasn't available then everyone would have to buy used and the value
> would go up heaps.
 
:-) .... dream on!  The vast majority of those who download those
free copies would not be prepared to buy used copies.  If you must
pay actual money for it, you'll think twice of whether you actually
need it or not.  But if it's for free, you'll get it even if you
don't really need it.
 
> By making it available for free you are robbing these legitimate
> users of the software of the value of their investment.
 
I would want to say that if you buy software not because you want to
use it but because you later want to sell it, used, at a high price,
you're most likely fooling yourself.
 
Anyway, from your claim it follows that you think it was a BAD THING
when I asked for, and did get, Bob S-C's permission to distribute
copies of his old S-C Assembler for free, because then I robbed the
legitimate owners of that software of their possibility to sell their
copies in the second-hand software market.  Is that so?
 
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
Grev Turegatan 40,  S-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
e-mail:  pausch at saaf dot se   or    paul.schlyter at ausys dot se
WWW:     http://hotel04.ausys.se/pausch    http://welcome.to/pausch