Correct me if im wrong, but I don't think he just invented this mindset out of nowhere. It was born from the hacker culture at MIT before industry completely took over software production. Im not very hip on philosophy, what makes someone a credible philosopher?
Peer review in major academic publications typically. Philosophy is a lot more rigorous than many imagine. RMS' ideas are interesting, and may even form the basis of some philosophical positions in the future, but I would not call him a philosopher in the academic sense. A lot of the distinction is wrapped up in culture and context. As a programmer, I work on subjects that delve heavily in mathematics, but I would not call myself a mathematician, because I am not part of that culture or the peer review process.
Absolutely, but that model relied on programmers being paid by MIT, who was in turn paid by the US taxpayer. It was never going to pay for millions of programmers salaries, it was designed for the elite few.
I think the past decade has shown that free, open source, and completely proprietary software can all co-exist without negatively affecting consumer choice.
Absolutely, but that model relied on programmers being paid by MIT, who was in turn paid by the US taxpayer. It was never going to pay for millions of programmers salaries, it was designed for the elite few.
My paycheck disagrees with the assertion that the model relies on programmers being paid by MIT.
It's certainly less profitable than writing proprietary code, but I see no reason why it can't pay for millions of programmers' salaries. And no, the fact that it doesn't right now is not proof of that, because proprietary software crowds out free software jobs. I'm talking about the hypothetical situation of all software written being Free.
Sure, it could be an option, but for those of us who have no moral objection to proprietary code, its not a compelling universe to live in.
People who write proprietary software generally take on harder problems before the free software community (from AT&T to Google), and are quite generous with their fortunes once they make them.
I'm not concerned when producers of good things make money, I'm happy when I see that happening, as opposed to non-producers like financial vultures making all the money while being destructive to society.
