Re: Comparing Lisp conditions to Java Exceptions

Kent M Pitman wrote:
A lot of people who make free software think they will end up being able
to consult on the product when done, but I bet that in general it is rare
that the person who makes something gets to do that unless the product is
big and hard to understand. Being in the consultant business is a tough
thing because you have to have the right resources to respond to arbitrary
needs. In general, that means that big organizations can be consultants
but little guys will be whomped because they can't keep their plate statistically full and so they have to charge a premium rate to cover down
time, while a big organization can have enough things going at once that it
can rely on statistical degrees of availability on this or that project and
shift people among.

That's why I don't really like what IBM is doing with free software. They pay a handful of programmers, and profit from hundreds out there, that don't get paid anything for their work, but sacrifice their free-time instead, some for fun, some maybe in hope of a glorious programming career that might not happen.

If software is *really good* and easy to use, you don't need consulting. Sendmail can sell consulting, because their software is a complex lump, that is: not nearly good enough. Web servers and application servers sell consulting, because they are hard to install and hard to use (Java, J2EE etc.).

So you can't make any money on making a video game, or a really good application, open-source. There will be nobody who needs your consulting. It's sad that ESR and others don't seem to ever consider this.

What I lament MOST, in fact, is that the politics of the world are screwed
up. There are some very generous and thoughtful people in CS who understand
"process" and "how to count" and stuff like that in ways that would allow
them to confront issues like overpopulation, global warming, fair voting,
and other important issues with more than a shrug and an "I don't see a problem here" like we get from our all-too-comfortable and not-so-generous
leaders today. If those people in CS who have new ideas about how to make
the world work had money, they might make some changes to the world. But
instead they are breeding a whole generation and a whole industry of economically disempowered people. And the people who are making the money
instead are laughing their way to the bank that all they have to do is provide "free pacifiers" to these smart, valuable people and they'll work
for free.

I think that in many ways operating systems are analogous to global polito-economic systems. A small kernel is better and easier to manage. The more processes run in user-space (in the free market), the more they can be improved by independent parties (people, not political parties :D). A difference is that most trade doesn't need kernel-traps: people trade just among each other; state intervention is only needed when someone breaks the law (exception, fault).

I'm afraid that too many people, especially non-CSers, will think I'm totally nuts when I should ever publicly state these comparisons.

--
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. -- Abraham Lincoln
.

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