Re: [Qemu-devel] [6324] Return -errno on write failure (Gleb Natapov)

[François Revol]

> On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 07:52:03PM +0100, Fran??ois Revol wrote:
> > There is also the fact that at least theorically one has to pay for
> > it,
> > unlike RFCs. It's interesting to see free software people insisting
> > on
> > Microsoft or others for free of charge specs on protocols yet abide
> > by
> > paid standards.
>
> Open source people want to be able to get specs.  Having to pay for
> the
> paper it is printed on isn't that bad.  Not being able to get it at
> all
> is bad.  I think Epson has traditionally charged about $20 or so for
> programing specs for their inkjet printers, although I could have
> that
> figure wrong (I have never had to order one since the gutenprint
> people
> do such a great job already),and they might even be giving free
> copies
> to some groups.  Nothing wrong with that.
>
> Open source is NOT about not costing money, it is about being able to
> get sources and specs and do stuff with them.

That was just to point out the dilemna, yes it's not a problem to
charge for paper prints, and even the GPL allows charging for the
shipping costs, but nowadays it's so easy to have a file on an ftp/http
server that not doing so shows a lot about openness. Plus I'm not sure
the fees for C89 were only about printing at the time... (and printing
fees for 10 pages is not the same as for 500 pages...).

François.