Ok, I know I’m just opening up a flame war, but…
After reading a recent post here called ‘If you need in 3D engine’ I decided to check out a few of the engines. While poking around the Crystal Space site I found a link to a dialog between Jorrit and Richard Stallman. At first I didn’t know who Stallman was (I’m new to the free software and open source thing). After looking him up I read some of his articles, this one in particular:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html
and although I agree with the philosophy in theory, realistically an entire society cannot operate this way. Look at it from this perspective, if no one received anything for his or her work, who would do it? Well people that enjoyed it, right? Well the system breaks down when it comes time to find someone to clean the toilets. Anyway the people that enjoy doing a particular activity are not always the most qualified to do it. Example if I were in charge of developing video games (based on the fact that I like to do it) the shelves at Best Buy would be empty (based on my current perpetual development cycle ).
Anyway I was just wondering how some of you felt about this?
My take:
Is free software good? Yes, however like everything in life you do need, at one point, to put aside ideals and be realistic, not all software can be developed this way.
Maybe I totally misunderstood the whole point (wouldn’t be the first time ).
I hope no one takes offense to this. I’m not questioning the use of free software and open source, I’m all for it.
Thanks for your comments…
John.