[school-discuss] Better Than Free

[Joel Kahn <jj2kk4@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think this article by Kevin Kelly is worth
a fairly close reading:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html

The section that seems to be most obviously relevant
to FLOSS would be this passage:

"As the old joke goes: software, free. The manual, $10,000.
But it's no joke. A couple of high profile companies, like
Red Hat, Apache, and others make their living doing exactly
that. They provide paid support for free software. The copy
of code, being mere bits, is free ? and becomes valuable to
you only through the support and guidance."

I believe the rest of the essay also speaks to many of the
philosophical (if that's the right word) issues that come
up in regard to FLOSS and related topics. A good piece to
mention to friends, colleagues, acquaintances, enemies...:-)

Joel



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