Re: the best justice money can buy --Lessig (fwd)

Forwarded message:

> Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 03:13:00 -0800 (PST)
> From: mark@unicorn.com
> Subject: Re: the best justice money can buy --Lessig (fwd)

> Jim Choate (ravage@ssz.com) wrote:
> >If there were no copyright nobody would have any reason to market software
> >or much else for that matter.
> 
> So I presume that Linux doesn't exist[1]? And, for that matter, I make my
> living writing software which is given away for free...
> 
> [1] Yes, I'm aware the GPL uses copyright to enforce its conditions, but
> it's copright-free in the important sense: anyone can copy Linux and use 
> it with no fear of black ninjas at their door.

A couple of other points.

I've never claimed the monopolization would exist over nite or that it
wouldn't be filled with short term conflicts and ups-n-downs. Only that the
*long-term* result is a monopolized market. A point you seem to gloss over
as irrelevant. Let's give the market another 5-10 years and see where Linux
stands. Right now the estimate is 6-10 million users world wide use it. Share
wise that isn't a lot. The reason that Linux garners so much press right now
is that it is in fact an exception when an organization uses the software
(eg NASA). The test will be whether it grows significantly over the long
run and not the 5 years that Linux has been a serious os.


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At 08:21 AM 2/6/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
> Let's give the market another 5-10 years and see where Linux
>stands. Right now the estimate is 6-10 million users world wide use it. Share
>wise that isn't a lot. The reason that Linux garners so much press right now
>is that it is in fact an exception when an organization uses the software
>(eg NASA). The test will be whether it grows significantly over the long
>run and not the 5 years that Linux has been a serious os.

Sharewise, that's not bad for a system that had 1 million users a 
year or two ago, though of course it gains a lot of extra slack
because it's quasi-free Unix on an affordable platform.
Getting that much desktop support without running MSOffice is
impressive.  Getting lots of support for servers is a different issue;
we've known for a decade and a half that if you want to actually
build a system that will _do_ real work for you, you use Unix*,
even if you use a different desktop GUI.  NT has been improved enough
that you can occasionally build services on it if you're desperate
enough, though its stability is still less than ideal.
(I never had it crash except for hardware mismatch reasons,
but its networking stuff reflects the fact that MS still doesn't
understand what networks are.)

---
* In a few environments you'd use VMS, because for all DEC's faults,
they were very strong on making sure they had software environments to
support the applications their customers wanted, like factory control.
Or you could use LispMachines, because they were nice.

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639