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Story: Sun 'distorts' definition of free software

Posted by: Woodrow Windischman (Saturday 2 July 2005, 6:26 PM)

I'm afraid, when it comes to understanding most people's motivations, I have to side with the Free Beer camp.

People, by and large, aren't interested in philosophy. They have a job to do, and they want to get it done. Software is a tool to them, nothing more, nothing less.

When "free" software doesn't do the job, isn't reliable, etc... Most users pay (happily or begrudgingly) whatever the going rate is for software that does do the job reliably. Supporting a philosophy of capitalism has nothing to do with it. If they can't afford it, many have no hesitation about pirating it by "borrowing" a disk from a friend.

Similarly, when "free" software does do the job reliably, people are very happy to save the money and use it. They don't care that they can edit the source code. As far as their concerned, that is just alot of extra confusing material on the CD, or expanded from a download. They don't care about fighting the evil commercial empire. They just want to do their jobs as cheaply as possible.

In addition, there is a lot of inertia. People buy what they're used to buying, whether it is the best or not. They'll get whatever software their friends recommend, by whatever means are needed. They'll vote for who they think CAN win, rathern than who they think SHOULD win. They want to back the winner, regardless of if they agree with him on everything (or even most things), as long as they "get the job done".