>>>My view is we should be paid for our labor. We should not be paid beyond that. When someone pays us for service, they are again paying us for our labor.
>>
>>I still find this a flawed approach. Why not sell your software a bunch of times, then use the proceeds to fund other bible-thumping projects of some sort if that's what you want to do instead of selling yourself short like that? Sell it a bunch of times create large business employee a bunch of people. If you can help more people by doing it this way then perhaps it's the best way to go about it. Example - Bill Gates - who's made billions re-selling same software over and over, has given more money to charity than any other human in history, and his foundation has..for the most part, completely eradicated a disease (they will completely soon) and if I'm not mistaken that's the 2nd time in history that's ever been pulled off. Sure makes a lot more sense than if he would of handed out windows OS source code for free then sat back and did nothing else but feel good about himself thinking he'd done some wonderful thing.
>
>
>God wove the Earth together, and all the people in it.
>Our goals are to help each other prosper, to grow others,
>to let the special talents God gave individuals bloom and
>do their part in the grand mix, which automatically means
>growing ourselves up as well. This cannot be done with
>artificially closed doors and barriers, but only through
>openness and transparency, each of us helping others,
>with God at the center, helping us all.
>
>Men choose to shut others out unnecessarily and bring
>condemnation upon themselves. They are empire building
>rather than people / community building.

What about my specific example of Bill Gates? Are you suggesting that he has not also done of lot of people / community building? As matter of fact, so much that it has required an empire to pull it off?

>How many software developers did God create to augment
>Windows who were shut out by closed policies? How many
>users today would like to buy ARM based devices and dual-
>boot Windows and Linux? Microsoft tried to kill that
>ability.

So what? That's not what happened, that's not how the world works. You can't sit here and say what if what if what if. We don't know and can't know. Maybe if it would of gone down that way a bunch of wack jobs would of made a bunch of nukes and eradicated all of humanity.

>We'll never know what was possible because closed,
>proprietary models and mindsets kept people out.

Well that is a rather negative way of looking at things- how about instead of being fragmented, everyone ended up working together.

>Hoarding is quite simply evil.
>It's personal empire building when we are part of a
>community.

Depends upon which side of the street your standing on. Keep in mind that these "empire builders" you speak of are responsible for your comfortable existence and the entire infrastructure of the country. If you're waaay down the street I'm sure there are plenty of homeless people in your city that would comfortably fit in your home, unless of course you'd rather just hoard all that space for yourself. Hey practice what you preach or don't preach it - and yo recall the story about casting the first stone? Sounds like you're real eager to toss a lot of stones Rick.

>Each man will choose for himself. And each man alone
>will answer for himself. And each man knows what side
>he's on when he is being true to his inmost voice, that
>call of God continually guiding us all.

Lastly - is it actually possible for you to respond to anything I say without the first words being along the lines of "God blah blah blah". Look I see your logic behind write once, sell once from a good-for-society standpoint. Hey I can even agree that if everyone thought this way the world would be a better place. I also think that doing as Bill Gates has done is also good for society, and that one does not necessarily exclude the other. Instead of preaching a sermon just say I have a good point or explain why you disagree without a) religion or b) god being the underlying reasoning behind your point. If you're incapable of doing so then a) put it religion section as now the topic has changed or b) just dont bother responding at all.