Re: Recent problems with `make bootstrap'.

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@glug.org> writes:

>    From: Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu>
>    Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 22:19:34 -0600 (CST)
>
>    quit wasting people's time?
>
> all time is wasted because all time cannot be conserved.  for
> example, i have just wasted some time writing `line-spacing' docs.

Objection.  You have _invested_ some time writing `line-spacing' docs.
While you personally are not likely to get a positive return on this
particular investment (even though occasionally writing docs may
actually make one understand the issue at hand and save time later),
you are getting a positive return of your time from other people that
write other docs saving you time in other areas.

This overall gain in efficiency (which is in stark contrast to you
investing time to find out something about proprietary software which
you can't contribute back) is one of the main arguments for the "Open
Source" programmar school (yes, I know I should go wash out my mouth
with Zope).  It _is_ an important aspect in the context of free
software, though not necessarily the most important one.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum