Re: [Pan-users] Re: OT: freedomware vs... Was: Building Pan on Windows?

[Rob]

On Wednesday 10 March 2010 01:34 pm, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> Google hasn't just released the Go programming language as free, open
> source software out of charity, 

If Google were primarily known for Go, you might have a point, but Google 
has the specific policy of encouraging their employees to work on passion 
projects 20% of the time (google for google 80/20), some of which end up as 
free software.  Google also develops other software for internal use, some 
of which (like Go) it releases as free software, while most of its 
"consumer-oriented" software and virtually all of its web services -- its 
bread and butter -- are proprietary code.  

The web services, and specifically the advertising from those services 
which wouldn't be viable if the web services were free software (as in 
Affero GPL) and easily recreated by other people with big servers, are what 
generate the revenue that pay for the 80/20 program and research projects 
like Go.

In other words, it's like a textbook example of what Joe was describing, 
not a Red Hat situation where the company was started purely to provide 
support and packaging for an otherwise free product.

Rob