Re: price of software [was Re: [ox-en] Book project]
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 12:42:47 -0500 (EST)
On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Russell McOrmond wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Graham Seaman wrote:
But I have to pay to use commercial software and I don't have to pay to
use free software, which I do think was what was meant (if it was
translated correctly in the first place).
Not to always challenge language, but: *grins*
"Commercial Software does not mean Proprietary Software"
http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=111
OK, I'm happy to stop writing 'commercial software' and write 'proprietary
software', but...
I really believe that equating Commercial Software to Proprietary
Software is one of the most effective pieces of FUD being promoted by the
proprietary software companies against FLOSS. If they can convince the
largest users/customers of software (services or products) that Free
Software is not appropriate to use in a commercial environment, then they
win.
... to my mind something doesn't become 'commercial' just because it's
used in a commercial context. I think of something commercial as something
that's sold to me. We breathe air at work, but I wouldn't say that makes
it 'commercial' air, or any different from the air I have at home. Words
again. Do you think that for most users 'commercial software' means
something like the opposite of 'home software'? Oracle versus Access,
or something like that? I've never come across that.
I am a commercial supplier of software services -- offering services
based (almost only - getting better every day) on FLOSS software. The
very existance of my company should be proof that commercial software is
not the same as proprietary software.
Hang on, you just wrote 'I am a commercial supplier of software
services - offering services based on Free/Libre software..'. You
didn't write 'based on commercial software' (which to my ears would
either be bizarre, or mean 'proprietary software').
Please can you hold off a bit? Since Russell just wrote:
'I find much of the rest of this thread rather confusing in seeming to
suggest that if something is 'libre' it automatically becomes 'gratis'.'
I'd like to see if he shows I've got something wrong in my reasoning...
Curious - have I given any food for thought on this?
Not really, just confused me! I work in a company that sounds similar to
yours. We do development on top of free software, or free software
installation. We charge for our services, but we don't seem to have any
problems with saying we use free software. Most of the time customers
don't even care - they just want to know how much we would charge them
to set a particular service up. But occasionally the customers themselves
specify that we must use free software. We never had any asking us to
use 'commercial software'. Anyway, the software we use is gratis and
the labour we put into modifying or installing it isn't.
Graham
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