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"Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
From:
jim hopper <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 19 Feb 2001 07:19:11 -0500
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<"B408ZYWMI712Z*/R=FBDCVD/R=A1/U=MCCABE JOHN/"@MHS>
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John,

Since gnat and Linux have been driving forces in what ada market we
have left, i think this issue is critically important to the ada
world. so while its a bit off topic, its actually in my mind an ada
advocacy issue.  so... ;-)

It seems you agree that the gov't should look into making it illegal
for each of us to release our code as open source?? Its my code and i
will do what i want with it, microsoft has no right to try to get
gov't to keep me from releasing it. So Linux and Gnat should be
illegal?? what happened to the free market principles and the freedom
to innovate they are always crying about?? I guess that only applies
to them not to the rest of us? If there is no alternatives then they
can charge whatever they please regardless of what its worth as we
will have no options.  They have succeeded in running all their
competition out of business, now they want to destroy the last check
on their owning it all?

In the late 70s when i worked with apple ][ i found a perfect example
of where this kind of things leads.  there was a utility that was
really useful, but the company wanted $40 for it (this was when the
usual price for software was like $10).  i wrote 4k lines of ASM to
do the same thing and put it out as public domain. I did not copy
thier software, i wrote a program to do the same disk management task
which was common on the larger OS's of the day. it didn't ruin their
market as lots of people still wanted shrink wrap, but it did force
them to lower the price to like $20 which was much more reasonable.
given i wrote a program that did EVERYTHING theres did and more over
my Christmas break, you can hardly say they were just trying to
recoup big development costs ;-)

Jim


At 12:44 PM +0000 2/19/01, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>  >  Just when you thought MS couldnt do anything more outrageous they do this!
>>...
>
>I hate to say this but, to some extent, I agree with Microsoft on that one.
>
>John
>
>
>
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--
If you wish to strive for peace of soul then believe;
if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.
    -- Friedrich Nietzsche

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