Hi Tom,
Am 07.06.2015 um 01:36 schrieb Tom Blecher:
Hello Scott, Nico, Michael, and others reading,
I studied now your previous statements, thank you for your points first. I think I understood it all very well. No doubt.
So straight forward for the finding on the head: So the propagandist story goes: Some talked of fs as a virus. You know that. For the virus the nature has some remedy. This strategy in loosely words is: alcohol. It kills all virus, even the last one. Be sure! So DIN is for example a master of hygiene. How does it do that? Simply by charging a fee for each specification document. The point that you and might be the rest on this planet do not acknowledge or probably accept the lethal effect on free software, just proves how good this alcohol is or less figuratively how evidently efficient the propaganda is. - Hey are we dealing with propaganda, yes? So may it matter that they are deemed damn powerful imho? Furthermore: So lets leave the picture of disease which it in not. Cause in the end it donates life and not how it is defamed that it devastated whole regions. What hygiene in this means can be fitter denominated as what I would call: free software deserts. That dramatic is the situation we face. And not randomly everywhere DIN has its fingers in https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Institut_f%C3%BCr_Normung#Liste_von_... nice all free software free. So back to the topic. I said desert: How is that any relevant to us, one might ask in the words of Micheal:
The issue of money for the paper really seems very small against all the
possible pitfalls for implementing them. Relevant is first that it is lethal for the free software, what could be worse? All pitfalls together? No! Nothing! Second: Have you once put into account how much human beings had to spend a whole work live far from free software. I mean considering the above list? Millions? Is that an argument for relevance? And might for each of them govern: what Mr. Stallman said on that there is no excuse for using no free software? So in result we gain a heavy duty to help our fellows, we who we are supposed to as "promoters of free software". What keeps seeming odd, that you and other experts have a strong contrary opinion on it.
Let me just specify one well-known example: OfficeOpen XML [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML ISO was tricked by illegal moves of Microsoft [1] to accept it as a standard. Even if you can get the standard without cost, you will never be able to comply with it, because of its sheer whopping 6000 (!) pages.
Let me state it clearly: Fees for standard papers (and certification) may be a problem but that would be solvable. Always remember: Free Software does not mean gratis and there is always money involved to create software professionally, about 75% of Linux code is developed in professional context [2].
Bye Michael
[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML [1] http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=127 [2] http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/04/linux-kernel-in-2011-15-million-tota...