Subject: Re: Questions about Symbolics lisp machines
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 11:10:07 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3226129821025405@naggum.net>

* Kent M Pitman
| It's amazing to me, but it appears to be true, that there are people who
| have these words/concepts in their head (socialness and antisocialness)
| but with the polarity of the meaning reversed...

  My take on this is that it depends on whether you consider yourself an
  (aspiring) member of the haves or the have-nots.  If you think you will
  never get a break and will always live on borrowed time, you want to make
  the most of it.  If you think you will you get the breaks you work hard
  for and live on earned time, you want to make the most of it.  The former
  consider it rude not to share something someone has with you on your
  terms.  The latter considers it rude for someone not to share something
  you have with them on your terms.  Specifically, if you are an author,
  you want to get the most out of publishing your work.  But as a reader,
  you want to get the most ouf ot reading that work, too.  As an author,
  you will not be thrilled if someone copies your work so you get no money
  from it, but as a reader, you will not be thrilled if you are barred from
  copying a work and giving it to a friend to "share" it.  In other words,
  if you consider yourself a producer, you have respect for producers and
  consider their rights, but if you consider yourself a consumer, obtaining
  that respect appears to be quite hard, probably because it means _not_
  getting some stuff you want, while one who considers himself a producer
  knows that he can get the stuff he wants only if he lets other producers
  get their stuff, too.

  Only those who are more likely to offer than to need, will understand
  that one can not place any demand on other people to give them anything.
  Those who only need, will not generally understand what it feels like to
  offer something for others and have them thank you with more demands.
  Money is an equalizer here that simply does not apply to the kind of
  good-will that forms the currency of the source-sharing community.

| Sorry.  Not really a bid to be declared royalty.  I was going out on what
| I hoped was a fairly sturdy limb and believing at least Erik, who was
| already involved in the discussion, was on the same side as me on this
| issue.  Perhaps even others who haven't spoken...  But the use of "We"
| doesn't require an army.

  Yup, count me in that "we".  However, please note that I used to be quite
  a fan of free software, but my goal was different from what I saw become
  the prevalent goal.  I have wanted to obtain and grant access to source
  to those who wanted to learn from it, whether it would be helpful to the
  development of that source code or not, just like good authoers have to
  read a lot of good code to learn what you can simply not learn without
  reading other people's works.  I had no political agenda with this at
  all, and I came to think it was a good idea on very different premises
  than were touted.  Also, the Open Source movement seems to be an anti-
  movement, not a pro-movement, and specifically anti-Microsoft, which I
  am, too, but Open Source is unfortunately able to destroy much more than
  Microsoft if it succeeds.  I have become highly critical of the focus and
  the political agenda, not to mention the fact that selling anything in a
  market where you compete with Open Source is so much harder, but this
  change has been gradual.  I consider free software to be a bad way to
  lure innocent students and hobbyists to give away their work and time,
  which is only a good idea if they consider it learning and marketing for
  their future carreers, but that is not how these things usually work.

///
-- 
  In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
  In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.