From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,88b676af04f3073d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1025b4,74b2c28810483a9c X-Google-Attributes: gid1025b4,public From: Bill Gribble Subject: Re: future of proprietry source code (was: Ada generics are bad) Date: 1998/04/18 Message-ID: <87n2diap88.fsf@firetrap.csres.utexas.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 345443891 References: <6gt05f$rt8@drn.newsguy.com> <6gthdp$bje$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> <6h6f82$3lb$1@halcyon.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Organization: The University of Texas at Austin Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.106) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,gnu.misc.discuss Date: 1998-04-18T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: tb@mit.edu (Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG) writes: > tzs@halcyon.com (Tim Smith) writes: > > For large categories of software, the majority of customers don't want, > > don't need, and could not make effective use of, source code, whereas one's > > competitors could make effective use of it. As long as that remains true, > > a company can, all other things being equal, make more money keeping their > > source secret. > > Those people STILL have a benefit to source code, which is that there > will be a free market for support. That means that they will be able > to get their bugs fixed. I believe he's talking about software for embedded computers. For most of the embedded computers out there, there's no way to upgrade the software without contracting to make your own CPUs with different programs in the on-chip mask ROM. In this case, there's no reasonable expectation that the user or any third party can actually do *anything* with the source to fix bugs or otherwise alter the behavior of the product. Bill Gribble