[ILUG] games.linux.ie

[Paul J Collins]

>>>>> "JC" == Jerry Connolly <jerry.connolly at eircom.net> writes:

    JC> Paul J Collins said the following on Sun, Feb 25, 2001 at 02:10:58PM +0000, 
    JC> I don't personally see anything wrong with making money.  I
    JC> have coded for money in the past, and will do in the future.
    >> 
    >> Again, your quoting has messed this up.  The statement above was a
    >> corollary to:
    JC> <SNIP>

    JC> Ok, read that, and I still read it as saying that making money
    JC> from developing and selling software is a bad thing.

Making money is not the Bad Thing.  Restricting users' freedom is the
Bad Thing.

    JC> then of course I'll use it, but if free software isn't
    JC> available with the functionality I require, and I don't have
    JC> the skills or the time to develop it, then I'll have to pay
    JC> for it.
    >> 
    >> Examples?

    JC> Not the type of example I had in mind exactly (I was thinking
    JC> more of a business setting where software may be required for
    JC> carrying out one's work), 

But you have no examples.

    JC> but games serve a good example.  I play a couple of FPS games,
    JC> namely Counter Strike and Quake 3 Arena.  One is a free to
    JC> download mod to half-life, the other cost me 35 quid.  Both
    JC> excellent games in my opinion, although they are quite
    JC> different in how you play them, and I don't know of a free
    JC> equivalent to the non-free game that comes close in terms of
    JC> quality.

I don't know anything about games, so I can't help you with that one.

    JC> I do not have a problem with paying 35 quid, because a lot of
    JC> work went into the product and I enjoy playing it.  How is my
    JC> freedom being stifled here?

You are not free to give your friends copies.  You are not free to
read the source code and learn from it.  You are not free to fix bugs
that affect you.  You are not free to change the game engine to take
advantage of the latest hacked-up set of instructions that Intel has
added to their CPUs.  The list goes on and on.

Maybe *you* don't want to do any of these things, but many other
people do.

    >> Tacit approval of proprietary software is peeing in everyone's
    >> cornflakes.

    JC> Proprietary software is apparently restricting your freedom,
    JC> making your non Intel hardware less useful, pissing in your
    JC> cereal and giving you an ulcer by the sound of things.  Sounds
    JC> like it's winning.

This isn't about *my* freedom, it's about everyone's freedom.

-- 
Starving artists queue here.