Hi Peter and other members.
I know what FREE means! I'm old enough to be ignored rather than told to go back to school (unless it is the U.S College of Irony)! Yes, I'm sure that folks do make a living out of 'Open Source' software as equally other use 'doze to make a living, but what has that to do with a 'FREE' software distribution on a magazine cover. Not only that I also know that folk down load FREE distros from the web and offer them for sale in things like micro mart. I believe I have read notices to the effect that the software is FREE - that is 'no cost' to the end user but the person downloading and offering it to other end user may charge for media used, post and pack &c. Please let me know if I have mis-understood all this 'free' stuff?
"Fully paid up" as I said was an indication that I have a fully working installation of Linux and I want to learn how to make it as useful to me as 'doze. I haven't seen any postings on this ALUG that any of the members actually want dosh in exchange for their wisdom (not that I understand much of it as yet), though I'm sure not many would refuse a beer if offered in a certain Norwich hostelry! There doesn't seem to be any shortage of irony either! And no doubt in due course I'll be an adept command line typer!
But thanks for the tip about mounting. I did discover that when media was in the drives (the DVD drives anyway) they were mounted. Now I need you get my USB drives recognised.
Cheers,
BD.
On Sat, 2005-12-03 at 10:35 +0000, Bob Dove wrote:
Hi Peter and other members.
I know what FREE means!
In an earlier email to me you said
Linux is free - isn't that the deal? Going out and buying it seems to be a bit of a contradiction!
which, with no indication of irony, I took to mean you didn't understand that it's not "free" as in "free beer".
Peter
On Saturday 03 December 2005 10:35, Bob Dove wrote:
I believe I have read notices to the effect that the software is FREE - that is 'no cost' to the end user but the person downloading and offering it to other end user may charge for media used, post and pack &c. Please let me know if I have mis-understood all this 'free' stuff?
I do not believe the GPL (and similar licenses) limit the fee charged to the cost of the media (and sundry costs). Indeed, one GPL bundle I provide is usually charged at $1000 for the base, and if the core packages requires customisation, that will put up the price. (Another project I have just started will be freely available starting at $5000)..
Releasing work under the GPL allows me to charge what ever I see as a reasonable price, however, the GPL grants the end user certain FREEdoms, namely: a) Free to examine the code. b) Free to make any number of copies. c) Free to sell or give away the copies. d) Free to modify and distrubute derived works.
GPL imposes a couple of restrictions - 1) Source code must be provided to the user if/when asked for. 2) Copyright of the original work belongs to the original author(s).
The multitude of shareware software that is often perceived as "free" in the world of M$ is not. For much of it, your charges for distribution are limited to media costs, and you have no rights to the source code, nor can you distribute derived works.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ may help to clarify some of the confusion over what is "free" software and what "FREE" means in the world of Linux (and derived works).
Regards, Paul.
N.B. I also do Debian CDs for a beer or two :)
On Saturday 03 December 2005 10:35, Bob Dove wrote:
Hi Peter and other members.
I know what FREE means! I'm old enough to be ignored rather than told to go back to school (unless it is the U.S College of Irony)!
Research leads me to believe there is no such age :P
Yes, I'm sure that folks do make a living out of 'Open Source' software as equally other use 'doze to make a living, but what has that to do with a 'FREE' software distribution on a magazine cover. Not only that I also know that folk down load FREE distros from the web and offer them for sale in things like micro mart. I believe I have read notices to the effect that the software is FREE - that is 'no cost' to the end user but the person downloading and offering it to other end user may charge for media used, post and pack &c. Please let me know if I have mis-understood all this 'free' stuff?
Just a little - it's a distinction between free as in beer/free as in speech, the Free Software Foundation and free software are usually talking about free as in speech. Appropriate links to the fsf etc. have been posted so I won't spam you with countless others.
"Fully paid up" as I said was an indication that I have a fully working installation of Linux and I want to learn how to make it as useful to me as 'doze.
As do we all - I'm happy to help facilitate that like most folk - If you've gotten a bad impression as a result of my whittering the other day, then I'm really sorry about that - as mentioned I was having a supremely awful day :)
I haven't seen any postings on this ALUG that any of the members actually want dosh in exchange for their wisdom (not that I understand much of it as yet), though I'm sure not many would refuse a beer if offered in a certain Norwich hostelry! There doesn't seem to be any shortage of irony either! And no doubt in due course I'll be an adept command line typer!
Hey, I think you said you work with QuarkXpress - if so that suggests you have a *way* stronger stomach than you need to plonk the odd few lines in a shell.
(I did a quarkXpress thing at uni and hated the interface of the app myself, although since I'm far from adept at anything, that means little, heh).
As for the USB devices, I'm fighting SuSE 9.2 into behaving itself with odd USB mass-storage devices myself at the moment. Argggh! (helpful, eh?)
Cheers,
Ten.
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Bob Dove -
Paul -
Peter Onion -
Ten