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Increasingly, software defines the device not the hardware. Device integration has brought hardware design to the point where it is mostly pasting blocks together. While software seems to represent little or no part of the cost of manufacturing some device, it does have real value. It has become much, much more complex and usually represents the bulk of development costs, and thus the real value of the device. So, when you buy a device with embedded firmware, what are you really paying for? Is it the hardware? Is it the software? I would assert that it is a little of both, and a lot of NRE on the software development. Surely, we can't expect people to give this away, can we? How will they fund it's development? While I'm all for the GNU project and free software, we can't seriously ask that this concept be taken too far or none of us will have a means of eating. We should not forget that the donations to the FSF are by people who are making a living practicing their trade. If the fruits of all our labors were suddenly free, the demand for software developers would diminish and so too would the FSF. The profits in this business are in software, not hardware. Don't believe me? Just look at the revenue per employee at Microsoft vs. Compaq. -brian >-----Original Message----- >From: Richard Stallman [SMTP:rms@santafe.edu] >Sent: Sunday, January 18, 1998 9:55 PM >To: rj@eli.elilabs.com >Cc: joel@OARcorp.com; rj@eli.elilabs.com; crossgcc@cygnus.com >Subject: Re: Results of "downloading compressed program images" request > > trying to apply intellectual property protection to software whose > proliferation could only increase sales of the hardware, when that > hardware comes with the software anyway? It sounds rather foolish to > me in many instances. Why not give away the source code? It is > useless without the hardware to run it on. > >I think you're right--I wish that more embedded developers had this view.