From: tmcwill@ukelele.GCR.COM (Thomas McWilliams) Subject: Re: What would people think of binary-only software on Linux? Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 00:08:30 GMT
rick@ee.uwm.edu (Rick Miller) writes:
> (Do you folks have any idea what companies are shelling out
> for SunNet Manager[tm] 2.0?!? Just think how many companies
> would be *CLAMBORING* to get a mini-network-manager so
> inexpensive that they could afford to put one on *EVERY*
> *SEGMENT* of their WAN!)
Binary only software distributions do not advance the art.
Secreted source code does not benefit the Linux community at
large. Were it not for the openness of the source code, Linux
would be a mere a toy, if indeed it existed at all. Software
hoarding can not be considered a "contribution". The GPL and
the open source code have made Linux the success that it is.
Cygnus and other commercial interests are quite comfortable
with this open paradigm, and in fact prosper. One need only
pull the source code to GCC and read the list of many
commercial contributors to realize this.
Thomas