thanks Patrick! On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 11:46 AM, Patrick Anderson <[email protected]>wrote:
On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 9:22 PM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
hi patrick,
I think you may have misread the article it's not about selling software, but about withholding updates on bugs .. i.e. some info is no longer shared with competitors ...
As a software engineer myself, I know almost every update contains bug fixes.
Maybe you are saying it becomes a "social imperative" when the changes are more 'vital'?
I guess I can see the concern.
It would be as though I had discovered a way to fix a terrible problem in the world such as disease or hunger, but am holding that solution ransom - revealing it only to those who pay me - similar to how the pharmaceutical and agriculture industries patent lifeforms to stop those designs from being copied.
There is a difference however. The Linux kernel is protected by the GNU GPL which requires RedHat allow anyone who receives a copy of those fixes be allowed to further distribute them without limit.
Hmm... So their actions require someone on earth buy at least 1 copy of those fixes, but cannot stop that buyer from giving those changes away - though there are real costs involved for internet connectivity that distributor must find some way to recover.
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