FOSS Users == Pirates?
Just finished reading the latest post on Coding Horror, and Atwood strikes again! His post is about the clash between FOSS and the traditional software business model. Being Atwood, he naturally takes the side of comercial software, even going as far as to publish the following line:
It’s tempting to ascribe this to the “cult of no-pay”, programmers and users who simply won’t pay for software no matter how good it is, or how inexpensive it may be. These people used to be called pirates. Now they’re open source enthusiasts.
This shows a total lack of understanding on his part as to the real motives of the “cult of no-pay.” First of all, let us remember that these people, for the most part, would not have been considered “pirates” at any time. In order to be a pirate, you would have to use commercial software without paying for it. Instead, these people just go without — something that both Jeff and the BSA have trouble understanding. Furthermore, it isn’t just that these people won’t use commercial software due to cost — most of them won’t use it because they don’t have access to the source. In other words, it isn’t a cult of people that refuse to use anything that is not Free-as-in-beer, it is a cult of people, again for the most part, that refuse to use anything that is not Free-as-in-speach.
(My apologies to my readers for the use of a bulverism)
