[CrackMonkey] OS/X Beta

[Paul Duncan]

* Deirdre Saoirse (deirdre at deirdre.net) wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Sep 2000, Don Marti wrote:
> 
> > begin  Peter A. Peterson II quotation of Thu, Sep 14, 2000 at 11:14:50AM -0500:
> > 
> > > True enough. Still, that's ridiculous!
> > 
> > Proprietary software isn't ridiculous because of the price -- even $0
> > proprietary software is still the business equivalent of eating a ham
> > sandwich in an organic chemistry lab.
> 
> Umm, most of MacOS/X Beta *isn't* proprietary. The important stuff
> certainly isn't.

"We were selling their own fat asses right back to them!"
 -- Fight Club        

Oddly appropriate, given the unofficial prerequisites for this mailing
list.  I'd say this pretty much goes for any BSD or Linux user,
especially given the recent advances in the alpha extension for XFree86,
FreeType2, and LinuxPPC's PowerPC SMP patches.

Then again, if we apply a slightly modified version of the RIAA's
already horribly mutilated logic, maybe this is a cause for concern in
the free software community.  The reasoning is as follows:

More people are using free software than ever before.  But why would
people download software for free when they can buy an exact digital
replica from a proprietary vendor for $29.95?  MacOS X represents a
significant threat to the free software business model.

On a not-so-related note; If I pumped this mantra enough on SlashPoop, I
wonder if it would generate another metaphor-laden, "look at the
technobabble fly" article by our lord and savior John Katz.

...

PS. Thanks a a million to the crackmonkey mail system for rejecting my
message the first time around (because of my mime pgp signature), but
not emailing me back until I was AFK.  Admins: while it is unacceptable
in the software industry, your unique implementation of the mail
rejection system certainly guarantees you a lucrative job in either the
food services or janitorial industry.

> -- 
> _Deirdre   *   http://www.sfknit.org   *   http://www.deirdre.net
> "More damage has been caused by innocent program crashes than by 
> malicious viruses, but they don't make great stories."

-- 
Paul Duncan <duncanpa at engr.orst.edu>    Network Support
http://www.pablotron.org                Botany and Plant Pathology
pabs on #e (EFNet IRC)                  Oregon State University