First, I should say what these two columns are not. I'm not here to criticize Linux. I'm sure it's a fine operating system; its market share is substantial. Folks who use it seem satisfied. While I might have a few bones to pick with Linux as it stands today, I'm not interested in getting into a shouting match over Linux.

    I'm also not interested in defending Microsoft. I don't wish to be drawn into an argument about the size, marketing practices, or quality of Microsoft code. That's not what this column is about. Frankly, a company as fast on its feet as Microsoft can change and thrive in almost any environment. I don't worry about its future.

    This column is about the question: should intellectual property—more specifically, software—be "free"?

    Many respondents thought I was confused on the concept of free as it applied to software. They quoted the "think free speech, not free beer" statement from the Free Software Foundation Web site, http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html. I think I was on the money. For the definition of free, let's use the four freedoms listed on the FSF site, specifically on the URL listed above. The third of these freedoms is "The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor." Well folks, if you can freely distribute copies of a program you didn't produce, it's pretty much free in the beer sense as well as the speech sense. It's the freedom to distribute that brings this back to a discussion about economics as well as freedom.

    Reading the GNU manifesto (http://www.fsf.org/gnu/manifesto.html) is enlightening and I recommend anyone discussing this topic to do so. However, in its pure form, the GNU concept does envision a world where general-purpose software is freely available—a world where the programmers are hired for support of this public software. Boy, that's what I live for, maintaining someone else's code.

    I like a world where a programmer can sit in a spare bedroom hacking away late at night. When the product is ready, the budding young entrepreneur can sell the product. All the toils of late-night development may then be rewarded with, among other things, a nice pile of cash. This flies in the face of the GNU concept where the product can be distributed by anyone to anyone. Per copy licenses allow a one-to-many multiplier when it comes to the value a programmer generates. Without it, a programmer is left selling his or her skills as a journeyman hacker to the large companies that use the freely distributed software.

    If GNU software becomes the norm, of course programmers won't starve. To quote the manifesto, "The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be possible for them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much as now." That's a bright future for a high school counselor to put in front of a kid. Sure, some folks will program for the love of it, myself included. It's not a bad thing, though, to be paid and paid well for a program well written. A few companies are paying programmers to write either "free" software or open source software, but large companies like Apple and Netscape have license agreements that violate the spirit and even the word of the GNU General Public License.

    This leads me to my last point. Many of the respondents jumped all over the fact that I stated "It's hard to compete if your competition is free" without mentioning Microsoft Internet Explorer. I have less than a thousand words to make a point in this column, so some things have to be understood, not stated explicitly. Of course Internet Explorer is free. However, the developers who wrote Internet Explorer were paid for their efforts.

    Finally, last month's column has been used by many as an example of FUD by a Microsoft employee. I'm not, nor have I ever been, an employee of Microsoft. My column is written on my own, thousands of miles from the MIND offices. Now, clearly this column is published in a magazine produced by Microsoft employees, so I am not going to maintain that I am free to say just anything, but any censorship is self-imposed, not the result of pressure from Microsoft. The recently appended disclaimer at the foot of the column is the direct result of my editors wanting to disassociate themselves from my opinions while at the same time allowing me the space to state them.

    These two columns have been about discussing the concept of intellectual property and whether it should be "free" or owned. Intelligent people can take either side of the argument. I'm not bashing the other side, I'm disagreeing with it. Folks on the "free" side ought to consider that there is another side to the issue and debate it intellectually, not emotionally. In any case, it's time to move on. I welcome opportunities to debate the topic in other arenas.

The opinions expressed herein are those of Douglas Boling and should not be construed as the opinions of Microsoft Corporation.