Linux and Philosophy

[Levi Pearson]

On Jul 18, 2005, at 12:39 PM, Bryan Sant wrote:
>
> There are many ways to make money though.  Apple *could* actually open
> source their software and make profit off of hardware sales.  MS on
> the other hand doesn't really have a hardware option.  They could do
> what Apple is planning on doing and have their software run only on an
> x86 system with a super-special BIOS with DRM technology...  You could
> make your software free (libre) while ensuring that it's not free
> (gratis).


Uh, I sort of agreed with you until this paragraph.  Apple already  
makes most of their profit from hardware sales, but why would they  
want to get rid of the software revenue they currently have?  Besides  
which, they already open source some of their software, mostly that  
which was open source to begin with.  This is the most sane model, in  
my opinion--you open source that which it makes sense to, and keep  
the parts proprietary that give you a competitive advantage.

The silliest part, though, is asserting that libre software could be  
forced to be non-gratis by a DRM scheme.  An effective DRM scheme  
kind of kills the libre aspect, doesn't it?

         --Levi