Re: [ox-en] What if the designs of everything were free?
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2003 21:20:58 +0200
Hi Rich and all!
Last week (12 days ago) Rich Walker wrote:
I guess we can all see a time where almost all software is
free and it appears that this would work quite well :-)
It certainly will work for any area where the programmer has motive for
writing the software. But there still seem to be areas where this does
not happen, and some of them may turn into significant stumbling
blocks.
In general you're right. However, I thing a good engineer is
fascinated by the problem as such. Give her a problem and she's going
to solve it - no matter whether she needs the solution or not. Don't
you think so? This Selbstentfaltung I think could be part of the
answer to the problem.
From my own experience, Free Software has not yet made inroads into
CAD/CAM. Whilst there is accounting software (sql-ledger) there isn't
payroll software.
At present, the only software licenses we purchase are for CAM and
payroll. (If anyone *is* writing Free CAM software, get in touch!)
But we are in the old anarchist debate - "But Sir, in your proposed
anarchist utopia, who will clean the sewers?" "Madam, you seem to be
aware of the problem - that makes you the logical choice."
Check
http://www.oekonux.org/texts/
for "Das Utopische Klo" for exactly that question. If you are able to
read German, French or Spanish you will find a nice, Oekonuxian answer
;-) .
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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