> And how are people supposed to support themselves while they create 
> these
> free tools for you?

There's an excellent example here:

        http://www.embedinc.com

:-)

Sounds like you're 'having a bob each way'.
There's a place for the free amongst the paid, and you obviously 
subscribe to this concept by your actions.

Nobody can survive without income of some sort, and I'm sure 
(especially as he explicitly said so :-) ) that John didn't mean that 
ALL the work that a software writer produced should be free.

There's an obvious case to be made for suppliers providing free tools 
to support their products. Different suppliers draw the line at 
different places. Some Asian suppliers of ultra high volume products 
charge for everything. Some manufacturers provide free assemblers. 
Some (such as Microchip and Atmel) supply free IDE's as well. And some 
(eg Zilog) provide free ANSI C compilers. Interestingly Zilog pay a 
fee per C compiler registered (not per dev kit sold with a CD in it).




        RM 

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