Re: [ox-en] Re: herrschaft
- From: "Benj. Mako Hill" <mako debian.org>
- Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 12:25:57 -0800
On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 05:01:32PM [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED], Felix Stalder wrote:
On Friday 16 January 2004 00:38, Casimir Purzelbaum wrote:
Free Software is free because it serves the (self-)interests of
the knowledge elites (programmers with a reasonably secure
economic basis, large service oriented corporations like IBM)
to have it free.
I don't think that the FSF has been financed by IBM for most of
the time of it's existence (-- or, has it?)...
What is your point against "a reasonably secure economic basis"?
Does this affect the results in any negative way? Or maybe
it's part of the answer: a "free society" is absolutely
unimaginable without "a reasonably secure economic basis". On
the other hand, what would be the prerequisites for the general
availability of that reasonably secure economic basis? (Would
that be another "structure", would it be a "free society"?)
I'm pretty sure that the FSF has never been financed by IBM or any
other major corporation, though I doubt they would decline donations
from them (and they would have no reason to).
You are evidently unaware of the FSF's corporate patronage program
(which is an important source of income for them now):
http://patron.fsf.org/
The case is different with many other GPLed Open Source projects,
most importantly the Linux kernel development. Linus and other key
figures are now employed by the OSDL, a foundation financed by an
industry consortium.
FSF is not a software development organization and do not pay
programmers to work on the GNU project (they basically give them email
addresses and some basic SourceForge like services to make their
development of GNU programs easier). OSDL is. FSF doesn't
really belong as an example in an conversation about paying
programmers.
Regards,
Mako
--
Benjamin Mako Hill
mako debian.org
http://mako.yukidoke.org/