Free? was: will ubuntu know my printer?

[Martin Marcher]

Dienstag 20 September 2005 11:10, admin:
> i find that a harsh conclusion but at the very least still an
> interesting one
> the difference between linux being free and pirate music being free is
> that the developers of linux actually want you to have linux for free,
> where music artists want you to pay.

1. i know some OS Software packages where the smallest "license" is about EUR 
9000

2. free means, as Morten posted, you have access to the source which will 
allow you (or the company you work for) to migrate data stored in whatever 
format to another software even if the company you originally bought software 
from has gone bankrupt

> my main puzzle is, if TurboPrint have a driver for the MP130, why can't
> i find that driver for free? why has one company hoarded that driver
> and not released it to anyone else? and where did that driver come
> from? did turboprint make? obviously they did, otherwise the driver
> would be available from other sources, if not included in the latest
> ubuntu distro.

maybe because turboprint payd for the information necessary to write drivers 
for that printer, and signed an agreement not to hand out information about 
this driver, reverse engineering it would not only violate law but would be 
very bad for the open source community (that is btw. one reason why people 
helping at OSS projects were advised not to touch the leaked MS Windows 
source, on could be charged that he used ideas/algorithms/<whatever sick 
charge (US) law allows> from ms product)

> in any case, if the developers of free software wanted something in
> return for their work the software would not be free. i think its rude
> to put software out there, tell people its free, but end by saying
> you'd appreciated something in return. my 2 cents anyway :)

i actually know of very few projects that explicitly say "This is free as in 
free beer". I think of it in that way: The developers accept, for the time 
being, that people use their software without having to pay, although i think 
projects like kde/gnome/cups/samba/postgres _should_ definitely charge for 
their packages because it would get them a huge advantage not having to rely 
on sponsors (although the approach works quite well at the moment)

martin

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