Skype telephone giveaway- but not for Linux users

[Andrew Jarrett]

On 6/15/07, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
> Andrew Jarrett wrote:
>
> >> On Thursday 14 June 2007 17:23:51 Derek Broughton wrote:
>
> >> > Software is worth what you pay for it.  If it costs you
> >> > _nothing_, that's probably what it's worth (and no, I'm not talking
> >> > free-as-in-beer). --
> >
> > The million dollar question is "What is software worth?"  I don't
> > believe that software is worth what you pay for it.  Maybe the "you
> > get what you pay for" mentality works in the supermarkets and general
> > stores, but the philosophy of software does not always parallel the
> > philosophy of reality.  Sure, there is some FLOSS that may not yet be
> > as developed as alternative proprietary software, but as long as I can
> > get the job done then I don't mind.  And _any_ software that gets the
> > job done is not worthless.  The real
>
> As I said, I'm not talking about "free as in beer".  FLOSS software has a
> cost - with the good stuff it's in the tit-for-tat contributions to the
> community; for the bad stuff it's the effort you have to put into
> maintaining it yourself.
> --
> derek

Sorry - your post was a little cryptic to me.  Are we agreeing or
disagreeing?  When you say "software is worth what you pay for it" who
is "you"?  I interpreted your comment as "if the software doesn't have
any cost to the _end user_ (not just money - resources, time, learning
curve, etc.) then it is worthless."  For example, I use Kate to edit
text files.  Because Kate is available to me for no cost (except the
time spent using it) then this software is practically worthless
compared to another program that required me investing more of my
resources into it.  I guess that doesn't really make sense, but that's
why I was responding.  Are you basically saying that free software
isn't free (somebody is investing their resources into it)?  If you
are, I agree.  I guess I just missed the point.

Andrew

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