Freedom

Freedom

Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:22 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)
In reply to: Freedom by vonbrand
Parent article: Devices that phone home

if there are local changes, and the vanilla version (seems) to work fine elsewhere, logic says to check those changes first...

It's just not that easy. If the local changes are far removed from the area with the symptoms, it often makes sense to check something else first (actually next -- the first thing you checked was that the vanilla version seems to work fine elsewhere) -- if your goal is to minimize the total amount of pain for everyone.

if they turn out not be related to the misbehaviour, the work done ruling that out has already been spent.

This is consistent with my claim that it's OK (meaning doesn't reduce software freedom) to charge by the hour for work made necessary by the local changes. The user would pay for that work to rule out the local change. But not for anything else.

BTW, "software freedom" is not some kind of right you enjoy because you are breathing, it is something others worked hard to give. Please respect them, their wishes and their work.

Of course, but I don't see how this is relevant to this thread.

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