First off, I want to start by apologizing to Evangelion, and misrepresenting his post. A few other members disregard for the way things exist today, and the software engineering field, got me a bit more rattled than I should have been. Evangelism was one of the few to take one of my posts to task, and called one of my statements "absolute crap" which caused me to spin off in not so much a direct response to him, though I definitely worded it that way, but more others on the board. Again, my apologize.
By your definition, EVERYTHING costs money. Want to have some friends over for a party? Pay them, I mean, they are spending their time at your place, and time is money. Oh, I'm jut spending my valuable time typing this reply, better hand me some cash ASAP.
That kind of thinking is the root cause why our society is so screwed up these days. What happened to doing things because you get enjoyment out of it, instead of doing something for earning a buck or two? Like it or not, there is more to life than money. A lot more. And like it or not, there are lots of people doign things for free. And they get their rewards for their work, they just might not get any money from it. KHTML-developers? No, they didn't get any money when Apple and Nokia chose their code for the basis of their browser. So what did they get? They get patches and improvements that made their software even better. They got that great feeling when they realized that there will be millions upon millions of people using their software.
You took the idea of Apple making money to a philosophical level. I don't think we really need to debate that here on the forum. If you would like to discuss the morals of money and society with me we can do that in private. Though I dare say we probably agree on the philosophical level.
What cost? If some developer uses his free time developing some free app, what does it cost him? Electricity? Well, is there a difference between spending that electricity for coding, as opposed to reading macrumors.com? Or playing Gears of War on Xbox360?
Yes. Though you did not claim it, others here are claiming that it should be free. Your claim that other software is free only backed up their claim. My reply was in the case of open source vs Apple, and how reality sits at the moment. Apple can not give away software, and to ask them to do so right now is absurd. I'm aware that you did not suggest this.
Last time I checked, it's part of OS X, and OS X is not free.
Can't we use that logic to say that even the icons cost money?
There is a difference there in time and effort.
And that means that when some developer writes free software, it also "costs money"? How exactly? Yes, many such developers are paid for their work, but many are not.
I'm going to hazard a wild uneducated stab in the dark and say more lines of code were compensated for in the world of software than not.
So, "sometimes"? It's not absolutely required anymore? Of course it helps if someone gives money for the software. But that does not mean that it's absolutely required to ask money for the software, just becuase they spent their "valuable time" on it. Hell, I spent about one hour of my "valuable time" playing with my Nintendo Wii, who should I send the bill for my time?
Which is different. The problem is the forum telling Apple and the individual developers at Apple what their time is worth. You wouldn't want a bunch of people telling you what you did for a living wasn't worth compensation. Saying that someone else in the world does your line of work for free in his spare time really doesn't justify not paying you.
I've worked in software engineering, and will have my degree shortly, so the idea hits home a little more for me perhaps. Perhaps, that is, I'm not sure what your line of work is, and perhaps you are a computer scientist as well.
In the end, sadly I would like money because the world more or less requires it to get by. I'd like to get paid to do what I enjoy, and I'm paying for an education that will allow that. While I applaud the open source community, and have worked on a project myself, it irks me a little bit to have people that do not belong to the field, disregard the effort that was put into software like bootcamp as nothing more than child's play. Better yet, as apple stealing someone else's code and charging money for it. I'm aware this is not you, though your comments as seen through my knee jerk reaction appeared to be defending that point. Again, apologizes
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Friends?
Like I said, there are plenty of software that are written for the fun of it, and not as a part of a "work". No, I'm not saying that charging money for software is wrong. What I AM saying is that there's lots of software written for other reasons than monetary compensation.`I NEVER said tht "Boo, Apple should release Boot Camp for free!". What I DID say was "Well, you can write software for your own enjoyment, withour requiring others to pay for the software". But maybe that idea is alien to Mac-users, since even the tiniest pieces of software on the Mac seem to have a pricetag attached to them? Is the idea that someone writes software, and simply gives it away so totally alien to you guys? Do you really believe that everything and everyone is about money?
Is there something wrong with my English or something? What part of "Well, I have no issues with them charging for Boot Camp" is hard to understand?
I think the problem is that within the contest of the conversation at hand, it can be easy to miss what you are trying to say.
In this case there is Apple, a for profit organization releasing software that they plan to make money on. And there are those Apple users that think it should be free.
I made the mistake of you claiming that "software can be free, here are examples" as defending the position that Apple should release it for free. Apple is not open source, and so defending the position of open source isn't quite relevant except as a nitpick to posts like mine. Though my posts are often times not entirely relevant either
Just pointing out what may be going through other people's heads, or at least mine.
As for Apple users being foreign to open source and free software, I think those flaming Apple for charging money shows that it is not foreign in the least bit! Though perhaps a little bit unrealistic in context of who the developers are.
