hi,
i just want to clarify a few things:
1. i'm great fan of free software, i only use free software, when i program i program free software and i apologize heavily for writing linux instead of gnu/linux (just sometimes happens since its shorter)
2. i don't doubt that you can earn money with free software, i know that quite some ppl are quite successfull with that.
3. all i want to say is: i doubt that free software will ever be more than a market niche in our economy. i already explained the reasons and the fact that the knowledge is shared and because of that the product would be cheaper doesn't change it. you can also reuse proprietary software and if sharing knowledge would make economic sense, then why is "intellectual property" (intellectual monopoly) more important today then ever before? why do all companys keep their knowledge secret, why are new laws inveted to stop us from sharing our wisdom? economy would never be so stupid to demand something which is bad for itself! they know exactly what they're doing but they also know that this is the best way to gain profit.
i really wish it would be so easy like many of you think it is... i just doubt it.
i personally think that the free software movement should not only hope that free software will one day be discovered by the big economy, i think we should criticise the economy for being unable to really deal with it.
i think that this is more important than fighting whether one has to say linux or gnu/linux, this is totally irrelevant anyway because ppl will always say linux since it sounds better and is shorter. i don't doubt that gnu/linux is the more correct name.
regards, moritz
Moritz Sinn wrote:
- all i want to say is: i doubt that free software will ever be more than a market niche in our economy. i already explained the reasons and the fact that the knowledge is shared and because of that the product would be cheaper doesn't change it. you can also reuse proprietary software and if sharing knowledge would make economic sense, then why is "intellectual property" (intellectual monopoly) more important today then ever before?
(Because economy and even society is more and more dictated by lawyers who are the ones who gain most from it?)
why do all companys keep their knowledge secret, why are new laws inveted to stop us from sharing our wisdom? economy would never be so stupid to demand something which is bad for itself!
I think you confuse what's better for the single company (in a given environment) and what's better for all. For a single company, it may have advantages to keep their knowledge secret, though it harms others. So if all do it, all will lose in total. (That's a basic principle, see "prisoner's dilemma".)
And it's one of the basic problems of capitalism, also in other areas. Capitalism wants companies to be selfish, selfish companies try to grow until they reach a monopoly, and a monopoly means no competition which is the basic idea of capitalism. (Very simplified, of course.) That's no proof that capitalism can't work (that would be a discussion for other places), just shows that you have to be careful with terms like "economic sense".
Frank
Frank Heckenbach frank@g-n-u.de writes:
(Because economy and even society is more and more dictated by lawyers who are the ones who gain most from it?)
without lawyers things would be worse. there wouldn't be any rules anymore which companies would have to follow. it's a bit vulgary to blame the lawyers which are only a product of modern society.
why do all companys keep their knowledge secret, why are new laws inveted to stop us from sharing our wisdom? economy would never be so stupid to demand something which is bad for itself!
I think you confuse what's better for the single company (in a given environment) and what's better for all. For a single company, it may have advantages to keep their knowledge secret, though it harms others. So if all do it, all will lose in total. (That's a basic principle, see "prisoner's dilemma".)
"what's good for me is good for all", isn't that the principle? of course its bad for the society if knowledge cannot be shared. but capitalism has immanent rules, it doesn't follow what's good for society it follows the profit. a company isn't free to do what it wants, a company is forced by competition to gain as much profit as possible. for gaining profit its not good to share the knowledge. you cannot sell what you give away for free.
And it's one of the basic problems of capitalism, also in other areas. Capitalism wants companies to be selfish, selfish companies try to grow until they reach a monopoly, and a monopoly means no competition which is the basic idea of capitalism. (Very simplified, of course.) That's no proof that capitalism can't work (that would be a discussion for other places), just shows that you have to be careful with terms like "economic sense".
when i speak of economy i mean capitalism, because its our economy today. though every company is selfish as you say and follows its own strategy, they've all in common that they have to make as much profit as possible. this main common interest also gives all companies, and that's what i mean when speaking of "the economy", having similar political interests. one of these interests is to protect intellectual monopoly.
regards, moritz
On Mon, 2004-03-29 at 12:56 +0200, Moritz Sinn wrote:
"what's good for me is good for all", isn't that the principle? of course its bad for the society if knowledge cannot be shared. but capitalism has immanent rules, it doesn't follow what's good for society it follows the profit.
(...)
when i speak of economy i mean capitalism, because its our economy today. though every company is selfish as you say and follows its own strategy, they've all in common that they have to make as much profit as possible. this main common interest also gives all companies, and that's what i mean when speaking of "the economy", having similar political interests. one of these interests is to protect intellectual monopoly.
Capitalism doesn't really match with knowledge society and the knowledgeable worker.
Capitalism bases remuneration on work time, while most IT work is project based... and development speed is more knowledge based than time based.
I think we're on the verge of a new form. Some people call it Digitalism... I don't know if that term is gaining ground or not.
Hugs, Rui
Hi
On Mon 29-Mar-2004 at 03:23:38PM +0100, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
I think we're on the verge of a new form.
I agree.
Some people call it Digitalism... I don't know if that term is gaining ground or not.
I haven't heard that one before... "gpl society" is the term that Oekonux uses, see this interview for more on this:
FREE SOFTWARE & GPL SOCIETY
http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/mertentext.html
Chris
On Mon, 2004-03-29 at 17:44 +0100, Chris wrote:
On Mon 29-Mar-2004 at 03:23:38PM +0100, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
I think we're on the verge of a new form.
I agree.
Some people call it Digitalism... I don't know if that term is gaining ground or not.
I haven't heard that one before... "gpl society" is the term that Oekonux uses, see this interview for more on this:
I will read more about Oekonux (I hope it's in english or easy french), but that wasn't what I meant. I meant a transformation of Capitalism into Digitalism as more and more work is geared towards the knowledgeable worker, and not to manufacturing goods.
Rui
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On 29 Mar 2004 at 18:06, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
Some people call it Digitalism... I don't know if that term is gaining ground or not.
I haven't heard that one before... "gpl society" is the term that Oekonux uses, see this interview for more on this:
I will read more about Oekonux (I hope it's in english or easy french), but that wasn't what I meant. I meant a transformation of Capitalism into Digitalism as more and more work is geared towards the knowledgeable worker, and not to manufacturing goods.
We've had some problems on the English list recently, but it certainly was good for a long time and we all made progress. I am one of the few on the list who disagrees with the whole concept of gpl society, but I do think that technology has enabled a new mode of production which we've haven't caught on to how to make the most efficient yet. This isn't the standard free software development paradigm as we know it IMHO, but we're moving the right way.
Cheers, Niall
Moritz Sinn wrote:
Frank Heckenbach frank@g-n-u.de writes:
(Because economy and even society is more and more dictated by lawyers who are the ones who gain most from it?)
without lawyers things would be worse. there wouldn't be any rules anymore which companies would have to follow. it's a bit vulgary to blame the lawyers which are only a product of modern society.
Without lawyers <> without laws. But I don't mean that lawyers are bad per se, but it's dangerous if laws are made by those who profit from them (corporate lawyers) as seems to be mostly the case in the current debates. That's why there is (was? or never really was?) the separation of powers ...
why do all companys keep their knowledge secret, why are new laws inveted to stop us from sharing our wisdom? economy would never be so stupid to demand something which is bad for itself!
I think you confuse what's better for the single company (in a given environment) and what's better for all. For a single company, it may have advantages to keep their knowledge secret, though it harms others. So if all do it, all will lose in total. (That's a basic principle, see "prisoner's dilemma".)
"what's good for me is good for all", isn't that the principle?
It's the principle, but it doesn't always work out. If A restricts its knowledge, then A may gain somewhat and everybody else loses a bit. If all do this, in total everybody loses. -- Well, in practice not quite, some will gain, mostly big proprietary businesses and corporate lawyers. And not incidentally those are driving the more restrictive laws (see above).
communism never existed. its a big big failure of the mainstream to think that the east would have had something todo with communism. the usa is more communist than china
While I agree with the first part, the last sentence seems "interesting" (though OT) ...
another main quality of capitalism is the competition and this is also more stronger than ever today.
In some areas yes, but especially with intellectual monopoly (as you called it quite correctly) it's more and more endangered, I mean by laws. Technically, there can always be competitors, but if they can easily be crushed down with software patents etc., the competition will only be a faint dream, with all the bad consequences (technically, economically and WRT civil liberties).
Frank
Frank Heckenbach frank@g-n-u.de writes:
communism never existed. its a big big failure of the mainstream to think that the east would have had something todo with communism. the usa is more communist than china
While I agree with the first part, the last sentence seems "interesting" (though OT) ...
just to correct myself: it wasn't meant quite serious, but since communism is mainly about freedom and most ppl are more free in usa than in china there is some trueness in it.
On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, Moritz Sinn wrote:
just to correct myself: it wasn't meant quite serious, but since communism is mainly about freedom and most ppl are more free in usa than in china there is some trueness in it
I thought that communism was an economic ideology based on the collective ownership of production and has had little to do with freedom. Certainly the intention is to eliminate class inequality if you'd like to consider that a freedom.
Whether any of the one-party governments (esp. China) that operate under that name are actually communist is very much open to debate. In any case I fail to see the connection between free software and communism. Collective production of software certainly does work but that doesn't imply that all successful free software comes from a collective of developers.
James
-- "You're turning into a penguin. Stop it" http://jamesd.ukgeeks.co.uk/
James Davis jamesd@jml.net writes:
On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, Moritz Sinn wrote:
just to correct myself: it wasn't meant quite serious, but since communism is mainly about freedom and most ppl are more free in usa than in china there is some trueness in it
I thought that communism was an economic ideology based on the collective ownership of production and has had little to do with freedom. Certainly the intention is to eliminate class inequality if you'd like to consider that a freedom.
i know that we're going a bit OT here.. so just say something if you don't want to discuss it here.
communism is not a economic ideology. only a society can be communist, not an economy. communism as it was described by its "discoverer" karl marx and friedrich engels is a society without a state, without money and without economic pressure. the communistic ideal is that everyone is totaly free, that means also free from economic needs.
communism wants to use the productivity created by capitalism for the humans and not for the profit.
Whether any of the one-party governments (esp. China) that operate under that name are actually communist is very much open to debate. In any case I fail to see the connection between free software and communism. Collective production of software certainly does work but that doesn't imply that all successful free software comes from a collective of developers.
there is not much open to debate in case you take communism as it was first defined in the 19th century by marx and engels and i think that is what we should do, anything else doesn't make much sense. communism simply aks for no governemnt at all, for no state, for no money. according to that china is not communistic.
you cannot call free software communistic because free software is not a society. but i think free software has some communistic touch because it shows that you can produce without economic pressure, that you can grant real freedom and that you can produce without capital. it also shows that at least in this case it is even better to do it this way than the classical way to produce in the capitalistic market.
free software shows that i can work in another way with even better results.
regards, moritz
Hi
On Wed 31-Mar-2004 at 06:10:33PM +0200, Moritz Sinn wrote:
On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, Moritz Sinn wrote:
i know that we're going a bit OT here.. so just say something if you don't want to discuss it here.
I'll echo that, FSF doesn't stand for the Free Stuff Foundation after all ;-)
you cannot call free software communistic because free software is not a society. but i think free software has some communistic touch because it shows that you can produce without economic pressure, that you can grant real freedom and that you can produce without capital. it also shows that at least in this case it is even better to do it this way than the classical way to produce in the capitalistic market.
free software shows that i can work in another way with even better results.
I think that the way free software is produced could represent a new mode of production that can be initially applied to the production of all things digital. Free material stuff is a bit harder since the absence of scarcity is harder to achieve with things.
Free software is not scarce, has loads of use value, next to no exchange value and it's production as a whole represents an incalculable amount of labour time -- it's hard to think of many other things for which this is true.
This text is interesting on the subject of communism and free software:
Free Software and Market Relations
http://www.oekonux.org/texts/marketrelations.html
Chris
"Moritz" == Moritz Sinn moritz@freesources.org writes:
> economy would never be so stupid to demand something which is > bad for itself! they know exactly what they're doing but they > also know that this is the best way to gain profit.
Please consider that "economy" doesn't demand anything - it's people/companies who do, and they usually have a quite selfish attitude (this is not a moral judgement, just a basic observation of facts) which is not necessarily a good thing neither for society nor for themselves. The classic example is the company which pollutes the environment to cut on costs - this results in an immediate gain for shareholders and in a medium to long-term damage/loss for all society (and by definition, for shareholders themselves).
I'll stop here before we drift off-topic, but I think a serious and scientific discussion on the topic of economy and Libre Software (as well as libre content, libre communication, etc, etc) is a thing to do. Most probably it's already being done and I don't know where - any suggestion in this sense is welcome.
bye,
andrea
Andrea Glorioso sama@perchetopi.org writes:
I'll stop here before we drift off-topic, but I think a serious and scientific discussion on the topic of economy and Libre Software (as well as libre content, libre communication, etc, etc) is a thing to do. Most probably it's already being done and I don't know where - any suggestion in this sense is welcome.
As it was already mentioned, the oekonux project (oekonux.org) discusses the effect of free software on economy and society and how the principle could change the world, or what power and motivation lays in the free software movement.
regards, moritz
On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 01:04:44PM +0200, Moritz Sinn wrote:
Andrea Glorioso sama@perchetopi.org writes:
I'll stop here before we drift off-topic, but I think a serious and scientific discussion on the topic of economy and Libre Software (as well as libre content, libre communication, etc, etc) is a thing to do. Most probably it's already being done and I don't know where - any suggestion in this sense is welcome.
An active discussion list for Free Software business is http://www.crynwr.com/fsb/
As it was already mentioned, the oekonux project (oekonux.org) discusses the effect of free software on economy and society and how the principle could change the world, or what power and motivation lays in the free software movement.
While I find it good, that oekonux offers a place to debate those questions should be noted that they sometimes come up with odd arguments and questions that have been debated in length in other disciplins already.
In my eyes they focus too much on the capitalism versus communism question, where the real economies faces a lot of different problems and there never has been a real capitalism or communism. Economy scientists will describe the situation and their current theories with other terms. I even heard some oekonux people believe that this could develop into gratis physical goods. Naturally I do not share this notion.
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On 29 Mar 2004 at 20:33, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
In my eyes they focus too much on the capitalism versus communism question, where the real economies faces a lot of different problems and there never has been a real capitalism or communism. Economy scientists will describe the situation and their current theories with other terms.
All the neo-communists have left recently because they thought a nazi from the debian project had joined the list. I have opined this is a good thing, but the masters that be don't agree at all. It's led to a dead list recently, so I'll check out the one you posted.
I even heard some oekonux people believe that this could develop into gratis physical goods. Naturally I do not share this notion.
Yeah it's daft IMHO. Different economics apply to information in that it can be replicated for a tiny cost and thus it's economically viable it can be given away for free. Physical goods can't have that, so they can never be given away for free. It didn't work in communism, it just doesn't work.
Cheers, Niall
"Niall Douglas" s_fsfeurope2@nedprod.com writes:
Yeah it's daft IMHO. Different economics apply to information in that it can be replicated for a tiny cost and thus it's economically viable it can be given away for free. Physical goods can't have that, so they can never be given away for free. It didn't work in communism, it just doesn't work.
communism never existed. its a big big failure of the mainstream to think that the east would have had something todo with communism. the usa is more communist than china and cuba might have some socialist attitude but after all it stays a dictatorship.
our economy today is capitalism more than any economy before. capitalism is not limited to the industrialization age. capitalism is the economy which works on base of private capital. capital can be anything with value which gains more value out of itself. another main quality of capitalism is the competition and this is also more stronger than ever today.
regards, moritz
On Tue, 2004-03-30 at 11:26 +0200, Moritz Sinn wrote:
age. capitalism is the economy which works on base of private capital. capital can be anything with value which gains more value out of itself. another main quality of capitalism is the competition and this is also more stronger than ever today.
But that is based upon measuring of the amount of work. Today, the knowledgeable worker (specially in the software field) may be more productive in one hour than in the whole previous month of normal work (ok, this is an exageration).
It's just that there isn't anymore any real relation from more work -> more value to gain out of itself.
I have had days where I did in a couple of hours what I couldn't do in previous days for the whole day.
Rui
On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 03:53:02PM +0200, Moritz Sinn wrote:
- all i want to say is: i doubt that free software will ever be more than a market niche in our economy.
It is already more than a niche market. Free Software already runs on servers, desktops, mainframes and embedded computers. Free Software already runs on almost 70% of all webservers in the world, to give a random example.
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On 28 Mar 2004 at 15:53, Moritz Sinn wrote:
- i don't doubt that you can earn money with free software, i know
that quite some ppl are quite successfull with that.
I think it's safe to say that fewer people can survive through programming free software than proprietary. Free software generates less wealth for the programmer as it's easier to shop around to find the cheapest free software developer to do the enhancements you want. It bodes poorly for future programming jobs in the west anyway.
sharing knowledge would make economic sense, then why is "intellectual property" (intellectual monopoly) more important today then ever before? why do all companys keep their knowledge secret, why are new laws inveted to stop us from sharing our wisdom?
The reason why is that to leverage power nowadays requires information more than tangible things like armies or money. That's a result of the modern age - a distillation of how to exercise power down to its core essentials. It is why economists call this age the information age - we are no longer in the industrial age.
i really wish it would be so easy like many of you think it is... i just doubt it.
Most software programmers tend to be liberal and have rose-tinted glasses on. This is neither good nor bad, just how things are.
i personally think that the free software movement should not only hope that free software will one day be discovered by the big economy, i think we should criticise the economy for being unable to really deal with it.
You should look into the Oekonux project or one of its many cousins around the world. I think free software will become the norm for all basic toolset stuff like operating systems and office suites because the technology there is universally useful to a lot of people and interoperability is more important than cutting edge facilities - however, there will always be a price premium for the latest edge thing, not least because there must be reward for taking leaps into the unknown and if it's useful, someone will pay for it.
i think that this is more important than fighting whether one has to say linux or gnu/linux, this is totally irrelevant anyway because ppl will always say linux since it sounds better and is shorter. i don't doubt that gnu/linux is the more correct name.
Linux is incomplete without GNU stuff, it couldn't be called an OS without them (though the missing functionality could be easily produced). I moved to FreeBSD recently and am loving it - it's just better IMHO somehow in some intangible way not least because it's substantially faster on my machine (about 20%) and uses half the RAM for the same tasks.
Cheers, Niall