Hi Terrence,
On Wed, 2005-12-28 at 15:02, JTD wrote:
I don't agree with the above reasoning. If any technology, however
superior, can not reach the people, I would consider it useless and
worthless.
Partly true or false - it depends what point in time u make the
observation and what is your definition of "value and worthiness".
So in the 1990s gnu and linux was actually "worthless" to most. And
today your statement is less true or false - most products have to
vend their way thru a host of middlemen before reaching the "people".
So the product is worthless because middlemen like music companies
(or theatre owners) cannot get their "value" out of a product. Every
argument can spin both ways.
The point I am trying to make is to make available the technology to
people in most efficient method available to you with prevailing market
conditions.
That includes even using "Middle Man" for delivery and choosing the
correct delivery model. In '70s and '80s WalMart was the right delivery
vehicle. In '90s and new millenia it's Amazone and eBay. :-)
Remember
technology is for the benefit of mankind not
the other way round. It is really sad that many people just talk of
technology for technology's sack.
like the MIT lab where personal computing started? Or some pokey place
with two college kids making apples from ICs? or a few developers
writing the next revolution?
Even though Apple was great technology, IBM PC and Microsoft took the
market. Why? Because, despite many problems, people show value in buying
PC over MAC.
People don't buy technology for the sack of technology, they buy the
technology for the immediate and future benefit he will get out of his
investment in technology.
The idea
behind FOSS is to make technology available and accessible
FREELY to people. The attitude of some people in FOSS, technology
for the technology's sack, is hurting the FOSS, apart from many
other reasons.
I think not. Since it is foss those feeling hurt can pick the code and
fork it with pleasure - X.org, uclinux, rtlinux. As long as the
technology is FOSS someone can always pick up broken threads and
weave it into a useful blanket.
This is 100% correct. Also, success of FOSS will not be derived from
FREEDOM alone. People has to see the "value" in the FREEDOM available to
them in FOSS. More over FOSS has to solve the real life problems for
large scale adoption. And the real problem solving is done by those
"Middle Man" like RedHat, Novell/SuSE, Debian, IBM, Terrence etc... :-)
It is when the only "value" that the market
attaches to "products" is
monetary that things get badly skewed. And i will quickly contradict
myself by saying that monetary value is what business has to think
about mostly - hence i decided not to pursue (as fax) the great tech
that i created in the distant past. I however used all of the
expertise in countless other projects, earned good money and more
important had and continue to have lots of fun doing so.
Well, by what other tangible means can you attach/access "value" to
"products" and/or "services"?
Gandhi was able to show great "value" in Khadi and "Swadeshi". Can
FOSS
do the same?
In short as long as there is freedom all the
contradictory forces will
resolve them selves over time. Skew it with legislation like DRM or
patent laws in the guise of helping the inventor and u get screwed.
Not really, people does not attach to much importance to freedom. See
what is the status of Khadi and "Swadeshi" in India today?
--
rgds
jtd
Remember, markets never exist. You have to create the markets. :-D Did
you grand father ever knew/thought about Mobile Phones or PC or ...?
With regards,
--
--Dinesh Shah :-)
<Dinesh(a)ShahMicro.com>
Shah Micro System
+91-98213-11906