Re: Proposal for an Emacs User Survey

[Jean Louis]

* Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> [2020-10-16 22:48]:
> > and it is software commodity as well. 
> 
> No, not really.  A commodity is something that's
> produced for sale.

Emacs have been sold and can be sold today, thus it is commodity by
definition.

> And a common connation of "commodity" is something
> that is run-of-the-mill, as opposed to specially
> produced (even if for sale).
> 
> > It has been sold for money in past through GNU
> > project, which is totally alright, and is probably
> > sold even today, I just don't know where.
> 
> GNU Emacs is not produced for sale, and it's not,
> in general, sold.  Generally, it's not a commodity.
> 
> If someone sells GNU Emacs then yes, in that case
> it could be said to be a commodity.
> 
> But as a general characterization that's not true:
> Emacs is not produced for sale.  That's not why
> it's produced, and selling it is not typical.

Read:
https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull24.html

If it is typical or not, it was sold and can be sold any time now,
there is no problem selling it, so it is still commodity.

> In particular, because in its usual form it's also provided for free
> (no sale).  If someone sells it, they likely sell some specialized
> version of it, or they sell something else along with it, such as
> support services.

Commodity is if traded, so you say, you cannot possibly know who sold
it and how many times, and how. So it is impossible to say "it is not
commodity" as "it is not sold" as you cannot oversee the planet.

In fact it is sold on many GNU/Linux distributions, it is bundled in
the GNU/Linux operating systems and sold through commercial
distributions, including sold as part of pre-installed systems.

When a customer purchases notebook with Windows, customer is in the
same time indirectly getting the commodity named Windows, even though
did not get any receipt for Windows, but for the notebook (depending
of the shop and country). That does not make Windows less commodity in
its term.

GNU Emacs is pre-installed on many computers, and such installation
require some time, effort, money spent for employees, DVDs, Internet,
very similar to installation of proprietary software. Customer need
not pay directly for the GNU/Linux distribution, but is paying
indirectly.