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>The Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985. From there since Free Software has only lost ground. Are you joking? This was before my time, but there once
by rnd0 5y ago
>The Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985. From there since Free Software has only lost ground.
Are you joking? This was before my time, but there once was a time when you would not only have to pay for development tools, but pay for them seperately. Want a compiler? $500, please. Want something like Bison? Fork a few hundred. Want an assembler? Another few hundred. etc.
There have been setbacks, and it does look like the tide is turning towards everything becoming closed again but it's untrue to say that Free Software has "only lost ground" since 1985 -hell, GCC didn't even come out until what, 1987, 1988 or so?
- yesenadam 5y agoYes, and no limited-time demo version to try things out - you bought a copy-protected disk in a box in shrink-wrapped plastic from a shop. I remember when Turbo Pascal came out - at below $100 and not copy-protected it seemed revolutionary, virtually free, like they were giving it away, it was so much cheaper than the usual $500 price tag.