From: "Juergen Specht" <js@nooper.com>
[Nick, spitting:]
> > Yes, I am sure all the people who currently make money
> > because there are no open source tools are crying all the
> > way to the bank, poor loves! You yourself sound quite
> > devastated....
>
> I just want to encourage you :)
>
> Juergen
Juergen is entitled to his opinion for at least one
very good reason: there's no system like what
we're talking about. Self-evidently, it hasn't been
worth people's volunteered time, or we'd have it
already. There's certainly been time enough. And
ingenuity.
I don't claim to have plumbed the economic mystery
of why some notions work as open source and
others don't. But we have some clues in this case
that this is at least a borderline proposition here.
Juergen has already pointed out that device specs
about sound are a major problem. Paul Lester,
in an earlier and unrelated discussion, pointed out
that some of the relevant formats are proprietary.
Even open source enthusiasts do very little
digital system reverse engineering, preferring
instead to petition device makers to open their
specs. For desktop PCs, the arguments favor
publication. Phones seem to present a different
picture. I wouldn't do Paul Lester's job unless
someone were paying me. And he, and the
people paying him, are under NDA from
equipment manufacturers.
Just an example.
-michael turner
leap@gol.com
Received on Tue Feb 26 05:18:23 2002