Re: [gNewSense-users] firefox2

[Ciaran O'Riordan]

Ted Hodgins <address@hidden> writes:
> guess the main reason large companies get
> behind Free Software is along the lines of sharing costs and not having to
> seperately maintain a different set of enhancements/bug fixes?

Some help free software because they want to shake off the control that
Microsoft has over their products.  Some help because they want to add one
feature to an existing tool that they use but they don't want to have to
write their own version of the tool.  Some help because they want to sell
related support, or training, or certification.

Most of our software is "copylefted", so if any person or company
distributes a modified version, that version must be entirely as free as the
original.

> That and
> they all have a chance of charging us schmucks for customer service

Yes, and us shmucks get to choose who gives us customer service in a free
market, unlike non-free software where for each software package, there is
only one company that can give you customer service (and paying for that
service isn't even optional, no matter how bad it is).

> suppose I'd have to find alternate sw that'd work instead of Skype and
> sekond life - is it true there might be a linux version commming out?

I don't know how free Second Life will be, but here's their PR that I
haven't read:
http://lindenlab.com/press/releases/01_08_07

> Ted, feeling dazed having to take all this stuff in!

Well, here's just one more ...but it's a big one :) It's a transcript I just
put online of one of Richard Stallman's recent speeches:

http://fsfeurope.org/documents/rms-fs-2006-03-09.en.html

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \  GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \   Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org