PythonWare: Anyone using for real projects?

[Bernhard Reiter]

[Posted and mailed]

Hello David,

thanks for your reply to my critic of your article.

I understand from your reply that you know about the difference
between a program that you might get without paying a licensing fee
or one that you get with enough freedom. 

For me as a developer freedom makes a difference because
it effects the long term availability and costs of the technology.
Furthermore I can fix timecritical bugs and adapt the software
if it comes with enough freedom.
We can probably agree that these points are of some interest 
to the technical reader.

My critic relates to that your use of "commercial" vs "free"
will not work out the details of what you mean by "free".
"free" is used ambiguosly. 

Furthermode it is not clear that software coming gratis or software
having freedom can also be commercial. That means having commercial
grade support or quality and being developed by professionals for money.
For many readers an attribute like "free" in the contrast of
"commercial" will interpreted negatively towards these qualities.

You guessed rightfully that I am also interested in the political
quality of the software business. Though, the heard of the critic of your
article is not a political issue as I tried to explain above.
Several authors feed the common misconception
about commercial software and its contrast being "Free" or "free" Software.
I merely wanted to point his out.

Best regards,
	Bernhard

In article <mailman.1008720527.21889.python-list at python.org>,
	"Dr. David Mertz" <mertz at gnosis.cx> writes:
> bernhard at intevation.de (Bernhard Reiter) wrote:
>> http://www.webreview.com/2001/07_20/developers/index02.shtml
>|First: The reviewer makes the mistake to equal "proprietory"
>|software with "commercial" software. In fact Free Software can be
>|commercial.
> 
> As said reviewer, I have to protest that I make no such mistake.  I
> wrote exactly what I meant, and used all the words accurately.
> 
> Reiter is, of course, correct that Free Software can be commercial.  The
> short review doesn't say anything about that one way or the other,
> because those issues simply were not topical.  In practice--despite
> legal technicalities of licenses that certain "enthusiasts" like to
> observe--if some software is Free, I'm going to be able to obtain it
> without paying money.  But it might well be worth paying the money
> either because of support that comes with that or out of principled
> support for the developers.
> 
> In the above review, I don't mention Free Software at all.  I *do*
> contrast PythonWorks with the *free* Idle, PythonWin and MacPython.
> That's not a comment on the license terms of the latter three; as Reiter
> should recognize, the lower case says that you don't pay money for the
> latter ones.  For Webreview, that's exactly the contrast most readers
> are worried about.  The site just isn't one that has a lot of interest
> in discussing freedom... and I write articles because I get paid money
> for doing so (although I subsequently make the articles Free, and
> obtainable from my own website).  When I write for places where readers
> worry about the political principles of licenses, I mention those; when
> I don't, I don't.
> 
> Yours, David...

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