Re: $1,250

       I'm not talking about arch here, I was talking about your
       statement that vendors _should_ do such-and-such, and other
       people that you want to have contact with _should_ behave a
       certain way.

Well, _perhaps_ it is therefore worth pointing out the ways in which
he have each misread the other.  You quoted me replying to someone
else:

	  Among other places, [vendors] are likely to [...]
	  than to be trolling a list like FSB. 

   ...that would be foolish of them.  The free software community really
   isn't all _that_ large, especially if [you're] looking for innovation.
   Not merely trolling:  they should be positively _scouring_.

Schematically, that's:

	A: X does not do Y.

	B: No, presumably you are mistaken because that would be
           foolish of X.  Doing Y economically is practical and has a
           potentially large payoff.  So, on the contrary, I think X
           should be doing Y fairly aggressively.

By _should_, I was expressing a mix of probability and logical
necessity mixed with uncertainty which I very briefly explained in
terms of costs and potential rewards; in retrospect, you seem to think
I was expressing some kind of metaphysical exhasperation about
circumstances beyond my control.  The verb voice of "would be" should
have clued you in.

It's a bit as if, while watching a football game, I remarked "They
should throw a pass near the sidelines in this situation (because
the game clock is running low)" and you replied by launching into a 30
minute lecture that starts with "Why should they do _that_?  Just
because _you_ say so?"

Now I had originally come up with a more charitable, but apparently
incorrect reading of your message -- and replied on the basis of that
reading.  I'll be more careful about that in the future.


-t