Re: [Fsfe-uk] The threat of a good example continued

[Simon Waters]

Ramin Nakisa wrote:
> 
> I would use something more tangible.  For example, imagine that a
> company build rail track networks.  The government could pay to have
> them build a British rail system, but after they stopped paying
> license fees for the track they tracks would belong to the company
> that created them.  Software should be thought of as infrastructure,
> not a commodity.

Hmm a terrible analogy to use in the UK, even Microsoft aren't
as bad as Railtrack were.

The government sold the track to Railtrack in order that it
would take care of maintance, presumably the assumption being
that a private company would look after it's own assets (Stories
of MS-DOS source code aside).

I think people can understand the software buying process
without getting distracted by the politics of railways.

If you think trains are more tangible, you haven't understood
the contract issued to one train operating company, that made it
more profitable for it not to operate a full service and to take
the resulting fines - guess what they did - yes protect
shareholder interests by not running trains.