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The indelicate subject....... money

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40hz:
Um...FWIW, the entire FOSS concept was never intended to be viewed as a business model. It's a philosophy. Those who believe in it do it. Those who don't simply don't. Unless they're the sort who are constantly looking for ways to "monetize" things and somehow do an end run around the social contract by availing themselves of what FOSS has to offer without honoring the requirement they give back to the community. It doesn't work. And you usually don't get away with it for long - as many discovered who tried.

Also, Apple's OSX has nothing (as in nada) to do with Linux. Nor did Jobs "rename" Unix. Both are common misconceptions. He had his engineers base OSX on NextStep (which was based on the Mach kernal and BSD) because he did not want to open Apple's source code to any who wanted it. He preferred to keep what Apple brought to the equation (i.e. the userland experience and other code - which was substantial btw) completely proprietary - something Apple was legally allowed to do under the terms of the license BSD/Mach/NextStep shipped under.

Apple "got it" and sidestepped Linux completely. Very smart. Saved themselves and us a boatload of grief.

Apple understood that if you want to do software as a business, do it as a business. If you want to do FOSS, do FOSS. Many people in software seem to be unable to grasp that simple realization.

Like the Zen master said:

     When sitting, just sit.
     While walking, just walk.
     Above all, try not to wobble.

himagain:

Quote: "Apple "got it" and sidestepped Linux completely. Very smart."
Exactly my point!

Saved themselves and us a boatload of grief.
Not sure what you mean by "us" here? You mentioned Userland - do you go back that far?? :-)
I do recall a broohaha about Applescript doing the wrong thing to Userland. Never got the whole story - it was a typical Apple thang in them days.
I used to use the Apple story regularly in management-salvaging contracts that were my bread and butter in them days.
Had to stop, was threatened by Steve's "attack dogs" so switched to G.E. who didn't care.....   :-)

But what a story Apple was/is. Became a ...... meme.

Joe Hone:
I think you are painting with an overbroad brush; not everything has to be for profit and places like DonationCoder provide alternatives for those willing to pitch in and participate within the goals of the community. I know a big name Disney employee (doesn't matter where you live or what you watch or listen to, you've heard his work) who freely donates his studio expertise after hours, should he be charging for that too? I don't see how coding and software development is any different - if you get satisfaction from making something and want to share it, go for it. And if you bring it here, someone is going to like what you did and you get a bonus, DC credits.

If you are commenting about streams of commerce and promising code development that fizzled and died due to poor decisions being made and the simple fact that people tend to pay closer attention to something they have to pay for, I get that. But I don't see where you're going to generate a lot of discussion about that in a sharing community like DC.

40hz:
You mentioned Userland - do you go back that far?? :-)
-himagain (January 21, 2013, 08:51 PM)
--- End quote ---

I do. I go back to the pre-personal computer days. Even before the Altair and Kim-1. I wrote what was probably my first "real program" in APL running on a Honeywell mainframe back when the "big iron" dinosaurs freely roamed our data centers. But I was using userland in this context rather than this one when I said it.

Had to stop, was threatened by Steve's "attack dogs" so switched to G.E. who didn't care.....   :-)
-himagain (January 21, 2013, 08:51 PM)
--- End quote ---

Years ago GE Corporate was a client of mine and I was very involved with their software licensing program as a contract employee. You probably talked to Mr. P.C. then. He was their resident ogre for that. He had little use for any software company.  ;D

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