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000362_news@columbia.edu _Sun Feb 25 11:46:31 2001.msg
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From: fdc@columbia.edu (Frank da Cruz)
Subject: Re: Linux as terminal emulator.
Date: 25 Feb 2001 16:41:40 GMT
Organization: Columbia University
Message-ID: <97bck4$809$1@newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu>
To: kermit.misc@columbia.edu
In article <87n1bbsipk.fsf@toncho.dhh.gt.org>,
John Hasler <john@dhh.gt.org> wrote:
: Frank da Cruz writes:
: > But then a year ago, for version 7.0, the [kermit] license was amended to
: > allow inclusion with all free operating system, including Linux, FreeBSD,
: > NetBSD, and OpenBSD:
:
: But it still isn't free software.
:
So what? Lots of software isn't free. Everybody is happy to pay money
for retail software and in return receive bugs, headaches, no
documentation, and no technical support.
C-Kermit free to *you* if you want to use it. If you ask for technical
support, you get it. It's free to Linux packagers if they want to include
it. But it's not free to people or companies who want to make money from
it. Seems fair to me.
The Kermit Project was giving software away before there was a GNU project
or FSF, before there was a Linux or FreeBSD. We all grew out of the same
environment -- university computer centers and CS departments in the early
days of the ARPANET, where we were paid to develop software. We had
secure jobs, so free software made sense. We all shared everything and it
was fun. But those days are gone. Virtually nobody is paid to develop
publicly available software in universities any more. The very foundation
of the free software movement no longer exists. Now free software is
developed by:
. Students who will soon get real jobs.
. People stealing time from their real jobs.
. A very few individuals who are actually paid to do it.
. Companies that hope it will destroy their competition.
. Companies that believe it will somehow turn a profit.
This is all fine with me -- everybody should do what they please if it
doesn't hurt anyone else. But it's not exactly a sound and stable system.
Unpaid developers have little incentive to care about what their users want.
And, with very few exceptions, it does not provide a career path except in
the sense that if you become famous for some free creation, then you can get
a high-paying job at an investment bank and disappear from the scene.
The Kermit Project is one of the last surviving university-based nonprofit
software development projects. We're here full-time to serve and help our
users. The money has to come from somewhere, and believe me, we've tried
every funding model. Sure, Kermit would be more popular if it was free to
everybody, but that would also kill it. Somehow we're still here.
In the end, I think this kind of puritanical doctrinaire insistence on
license purity is kind of silly, if not disingenuous. If the software is
free to you, then what do you care if it's not free to somebody else who
wants to sell it? If you yourself want to sell it, why do you think you
have the right to expropriate somebody else's labor for your own
enrichment? If everybody thought that way, nobody would do any useful
work and we'd all starve to death.
Suppose your company (as many do) had a commercial product of which Kermit
was a critical component. Doesn't it make good sense pay for it, thus
assuring its survival and continued development? Lots of companies think
so. If they don't mind, why should you?
The fact is, C-Kermit is highly functional, useful, modern, well-documented,
aggressively developed and supported software that can be in Linux if you
want it to be. As of C-Kermit 7.0, 1 January 2000, nothing is stopping
Linux packagers from including it. They'll do it if their customers want
them to.
- Frank