In article <C8F20o.41w@crdnns.crd.ge.com> davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
quoted text
>|    Government will not pay to develop "free" software.
>| 
>| False.  Would you care to hazard a guess as to what percentage of PD
>| software currently available was funded by the US government?
>
>  No, but if you want to claim it was a high percentage please post some
>source for your numbers.

When the US Government creates software, it uses public funds and generally
speaking, if the software is not classified as being harmful to the public,
it is released into the public domain.

I have a copy of Space Flight Simulator created apparently by the US Government
to track orbitals around celestial bodies by use of a PC computer using
MS-DOS.  I beleive that FLY! (don't quote me on this) was also created by
the US Government.

The US Government DOES create free software, and it IS out there.  You just
have to look around a bit for it.

Regarding Acamdemic Institutions, I know that at least in Canada, a susbtantial
potion of funds infact comes from the government.  This money goes into
projects like TRIUMF, here at UBC which is a KAON factory/particle
accelerator.  A lot of the money going in to it goes towards building new
software.  Aswell, money goes into the Computing Sciences program here at
UBC and they in turn develop more software aswell.

A lot of this software is then released to students so they can then access
the facilities better .. all of this at no charge to the student.  (it
could be argued that the money is coming out of tuition fees, but since
tuition is standard for all students attending the university, it is
negligable)

Programs such as gopher and gopher access programs are not what I would
consider research projects.  They are part of the service that our
Computing Sciences Dept. offers to all members of the university who have
unix accounts.  (mind you, there is a fee for the general unix facilities,
but this is to offset hardware costs, and not software)

quoted text
>  First, the hardware was donated by commercial hardware vendors, second
>parts of X were originally written by employees of those vendors, third
>it can be argued that MIT was "paid" in hardware for some of it's
>effort.

It is still free now.

And arguably I would say that X is just another MS-Windows GUI lookalike.  
Sure, it is nicer then MSW and includes source, but a lot of us don't
like GUI's and prefer to use CLI's.


quoted text
>  Let's say that people who's affiliation is academic or political
>(depending on the address used) may have a different outlook than those
>who are in the .com domain.
>bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; 518-387-6489

I don't think I should express my opinions of the buisness ethics of GE
or a gigantic offtopic flame war would ensue.


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