Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!rutgers!mit-eddie!"SDRRTR::PSI%PRSRTR::PSI%SCRVX2::BLUE::IN%\"'m_mailnow::m_sdr::davis'@scr-gateway\""@sdr.slb.COM
From: "SDRRTR::PSI%PRSRTR::PSI%SCRVX2::BLUE::IN%\"'m_mailnow::m_sdr::davis'@scr-gateway\""@sdr.slb.COM
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: ./etc/APPLE.  No Free Software for Mac users.
Message-ID: <8809280447.AA05629@EDDIE.MIT.EDU>
Date: 26 Sep 88 17:11:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@eddie.MIT.EDU
Lines: 36


To throw in my two-cents worth: I personally feel that Earl is pretty
much in the right here inasmuch as Apple have a very legitimate right
to determine via legal means how much of a restriction they can place
on the rest of us. I don't like their implicit reasons for doing so,
but the right is theirs to use as they wish. 

At the same time, I am saddened and disappointed that we do not live
in a world where rms' ideas are sufficiently widespread as to make
this kind of thing irrelevant. I wish that we did not attempt to view
intellectual property in the same light as material belongings and
that we could all take pleasure in seeing others using, developing and
hopefully improving our own efforts. In the long run, we all benefit
from such an approach.

Sadly, Apple do not seem to take this approach. I understand the
motives behind their action: it must be nice to make so much money
from such simple ideas as the Mac, and I do believe that they have
every right to take the issue to court - I just hope they lose, and
that in the meantime, the rest of us can continue to believe in
developing software for all of us, because we love doing that more than
we love making money. To be honest, I'd rather be a
something-else-by-day and a good hacker by night than the professional
programmer I am, but that I am not is a consequence of my own
particular situation. I like making money - at times, I don't even
mind be branded a yuppie (though I prefer "guppie" (Green Urban
Professional)) - but I do dislike doing so via something where my main
satisfaction is non-financial. It feels like it will ultimately
corrupt the very thing I enjoy at the moment ...

So, lets not get hysterical, lets apply the same desire to share and
progress to this issue and maybe some good will come of it. Sad not to
have GNU on our new II's though ...


Paul