RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)

["James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>]

At 08:31 AM 10/4/98 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
> Malarky. Reputation is irrelevant, just examine the
> prisoners delima.

Yet strange to report, the banks have no problem with granting me many tens
of thousands of dollars of unsecured credit.

Perhaps your reputation is irrelevant.  Mine, however, is obviously relevant.

> Those who put reputation over action are setting themselves up for a classic
> abuse of trust.

My former employer Informix had probably a million dollars of small,
readily fencible stuff such as memory chips in the computers of the many
large buildings to which I and about six hundred other employees had access
at any hour of the day or night.  They appeared to me to have a policy not
employing males straight out of college, but rather hiring people who had
some established background but apart from that took no special
precautions.  In particular they did not have a night watchman wandering
about at random.  Their watchman sat at the door or patrolled the exterior,
oriented solely on external threats.
 
The continued solvency of Informix, rental car agencies, and so on and so
forth looks indicates it is possible to readily distinguish between those
who will defect in a game of prisoners dilemma, and those who will cooperate.

    --digsig
         James A. Donald
     6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
     290NudELAtcM3PNN1SqalY8d8gN9gJ4SQcm4vqLY
     4U3vo+UqobR2nocMv+YQS7rqA47Y6ULXH+H1AAXVp
-----------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because 
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this 
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.


http://www.jim.com/jamesd/����� James A. Donald