Re: Fwd: Wall Street article on a new Cooperative

>>>>> "Bernard" == Bernard Lang <[email protected]> writes:

    Bernard> reminds me of the old democracies ...  only free citizens
    Bernard> benefitted, i.e. a small part of the population.  But in
    Bernard> the long run, democracy was extended to all

Very nice analogy!

    Bernard>   I am not really convinced this will work in the long
    Bernard> run. Free software works better where there is a large
    Bernard> community of users, which is precisely what they won't
    Bernard> have.  But maybe they'll learn free software.

But since they wouldn't anyway, this increases the number of users.
Remember, this is basically the way Apache started, in terms of number
of users.  A fairly small group of professionals with similar
problems.

I wonder how many patches Apache gets from J. Random Hackers.  I would
bet it's less than any of the major kernels, and _way_ less than the
proportion for X?Emacs.

Anyway, that's one reason why the FSF/OSI should work with them for
dual-licensing and phased-freeing---there can be a demonstration
effect as some of the freed apps just explode in popularity.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.