[Info-vax] Ada on VMS, was: Re: Free Pascal for VMS ?

[Dave Froble]

On 5/16/2018 7:35 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 5/16/2018 4:07 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 5/13/2018 12:14 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 5/12/2018 10:57 PM, Paul Sture wrote:
>>>> <https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2017/06/28/elementaryos_ubuntu_unity_replacement/#c_3219968>
>>>>
>>>>      "Well as the author of a very popular open source file system I
>>>>      fully concur with that attitude. People and companies just
>>>> won't  pay
>>>>      and will bend over backwards not to pay,
>>>>
>>>>      I have not received anything for the open source I wrote for the
>>>>      last 8 years. Nothing unless you count possibly 3 or 4
>>>> donations of
>>>>      less than $25 in 8 years.
>
>>>>      That's millions of installations. Bitter? You bet. I stopped
>>>>      developing it in 2014.
>
>>> He chose to release some code as open source.
>>>
>>> Very few people chose to donate money to him.
>>>
>>> He chose not to offer support for free.
>>>
>>> He chose to stop working on the open source code.
>>>
>>> I am not sure that I see the problem.
>>>
>>> He made his choices.
>>>
>>> Was he mislead in any way?
>
>> Well, yes, sort of.
>>
>> The entire concept of "free open source" is a problem.
>>
>> TANSTAAFL
>>
>> Writing code is work.  Work is usually something one does for some
>> form of compensation.  Don't see too many people with a job where they
>> do not get paid.  (Well, unless you're a prisoner in a Chinese prison.)
>>
>> Those who buy into the concept of free software have made a mistake.
>> One could claim that they were "mislead".
>
> Mislead how by who?

Whoever or whatever convinced someone to perform some work for no 
compensation.  It just doesn't make sense, unless, someone is looking 
for some ego satisfaction, and even then, that is a type of compensation.

> If someone promised them that they would make truckloads
> of money and they did not then they were mislead.
>
> But if they understood that it was unlikely that they
> would ever make lots of money from it then, then I can
> not see them as being mislead.
>
> People have been writing code for DECUS tapes,
> writing code snippets to post to comp.os.vms/INFO-VAX
> many years before the open source concept got defined.

The question when looking at DECUS, the freeware disks, and such, is how 
much of that was something someone needed, produced, and then decided to 
submit it for others to use, should they have a need for the software? 
I've submitted a few things.  I didn't write them to submit, I wrote 
them because I needed them.

> And the last couple of decades people have written code
> with a formal open source license.
>
> And it was rather clear (in my opinion) that they would
> never get paid for that.
>
> But they chose to do it anyway.

Which makes no sense ....

> It is fair enough if they want to stop doing that and
> focus on paid work.
>
> But I can not see them as being mislead.

Let me ask it this way.  Perhaps you've heard of cults, where people are 
required to turn over to the cult everything they have?  Would you call 
that being mislead?  I sure would, that is, when I'm not muttering "weak 
minded fools".